Ghost Town (23 page)

“Then it’s got to be the machine, the one Myrnin and I fixed. It started about the time we turned it on.” He raised his head and met her eyes, and her mouth, if possible, went even dryer. “Myrnin doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with it. I . . . I wish that was true, but I think he’s in denial. I think the machine is doing this to us, and it’s getting worse the longer it’s on.”

Oliver was silent for a moment, then said, “And if we turn it off?”

“Then the barriers go down. But I think the memory problems stop, too.”

“You’re certain of this.”

Was she? Because she knew she was staking her life on it. “Yes.”

Oliver growled, low in his throat, and said, “Then turn the damned thing off and fix it. Find what’s wrong. We can’t do without the barriers for long; our human residents are already defying authority, and once they realize the barriers don’t function, we will lose control entirely, and this will become a true bloodbath. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I’ll turn it off. We’ll fix it.”

“Then you’d best get to it. Now get out.”

Claire scrambled out from behind the table and grabbed her backpack. She hesitated over the knife and stake, but scooped them up and stuffed them in before throwing it over her shoulder and running for the door. She looked back once; Oliver didn’t seem to have noticed she’d left. He was still holding Amelie in his arms, and for the first time she saw real, raw emotion on his face.

Grief.

Dr. Theo Goldman stepped off the elevator carrying his doctor’s bag. He blinked at Claire as they maneuvered around each other, him coming out, her going in, and said, “I was told I had a patient. This is an odd place to find one.”

“It’s Amelie,” Claire said. “That way. Theo?”

He looked back, but kept walking.

“Please help her.”

He nodded, smiled reassuringly, and the doors closed on her before she could say anything else.

TEN

M
yrnin wasn’t at the lab when she arrived. That was unusual; she thought that maybe he might be sleeping, but when she checked his room at the back, it was neat and empty. He was just . . . out.

Well, that made things easier.

Claire called home and got Michael and Shane. “I need you to come help me,” she said. “And I need a ladder.”

“Tell me you did
not
volunteer us to paint somebody’s house,” Shane said. “That would be a lot like work. I’m already doing work way too much.”

Michael, however, got it immediately. “You need to get through the trapdoor at the lab. Myrnin’s not there?”

“No,” Claire said. “Can you help?”

“Sure. Open up the portal and we’ll come straight through.”

Claire hung up and rolled back the bookcase that blocked the portal—no easy job, because Myrnin hadn’t balanced it for humans, although he’d at least removed the lead, which was nice— and unlocked the door from a set of keys she found in the mouth of one of Myrnin’s discarded vampire-bunny slippers. She swung it open, concentrating on the Glass House, and the image flickered, wavered, and clarified into reality on the other side of the door.

Shane and Michael were carrying an extendable metal ladder. Claire reached through and gave Shane her hand, and he stepped over, pulling Michael after him along with the ladder.

“Wow,” Shane said, and shivered. “That’s not weird at all.”

“You’ve done it before,” Claire pointed out. “When I first fixed the portal.”

“Didn’t really think about it that time. Never gets any less strange, though. Okay, where to?”

“Here.” She’d already unlocked the trapdoor at the back of the lab and opened it, and Shane leaned over and peered down into the darkness. Michael pulled him back.

“What?” Shane asked.

“Better not to present a target before you know what’s actually down there, hero. Let’s get this ladder in, and then I go first, okay?”

“You bet, tough guy. Last time I was in a dark tunnel, I nearly got my face eaten. I’m a slow learner, but I do learn.”

They extended the ladder down, and Shane held it in place as Michael descended. Claire leaned over and said, “The light switch is at the end of the room.”

“Yeah, I see it—whoa.”

“What?”

Michael was quiet for a moment, then said, “I’m thinking it’s going to be better if I don’t tell you. Just hurry.”

Shane went first, and then Claire; the ladder felt rickety, but it held just fine. She hopped the last couple of steps down to land on the cave floor. Michael had turned on the tunnel lights, so there was no risk of walking into an ambush by . . . whatever, but she was still wondering what he’d seen, exactly. If he wasn’t just yanking Shane’s chain, of course. He never got tired of that.

No sign of trouble all the way to the big cave, and Michael hit the main switch there to turn on the banks of lights. The machine—Claire hated to call it a computer, really—was sitting exactly as she’d left it, screen showing normal readouts. Nothing wrong at all.

“Okay, I need to put in a password,” she said. “Hang on a second.”

She thought about it, and tried Myrnin’s name at the keyboard. No, the red light stayed on. She tried Amelie’s. The red light stayed on.

She tried putting in Ada’s name.

The red light stayed on.

Claire blinked at it. Myrnin didn’t
have
more than three passwords. He couldn’t even remember more than one at a time. He didn’t have a birthday he could remember; he didn’t have any family; what could he possibly use for a password?

Ah. She had it.

Claire.

The red light stayed on. Claire frowned at it. “Seriously?
Now
you get security conscious?”

“Problem?” Michael asked.

“No. I’ll get it.” She tried
Bob
, for Bob the Spider. Bob was busily spinning webs in a fish tank near Myrnin’s chair. Myrnin fed him a steady diet of crickets and flies, which seemed to make Bob happy. That qualified as a pet, right? People liked to use pet names for passwords.

It wasn’t Bob, either.

She tried, in desperation,
Oliver.
Not it. She plugged in the names of every possible vampire she could remember, including Bishop.

None of them worked.

“At least he didn’t put a lockout on it,” she muttered. She’d tried at least thirty passwords, without success. “Come
on
. I built you, you stupid piece of junk! Give me a break!”

“How about pulling the plug?” Shane asked. “Just turn off the power.”

She thought about it, but shook her head. “I don’t know what everything does in here. I could shut down something vital. Or destroy something we can’t rebuild easily.” She sighed. “He won’t be happy, but I’m going to have to ask Myrnin for the password.”

Michael’s head suddenly turned, but before he could speak, a rich, slow voice from the darkness said, “Ask Myrnin what, precisely?”

That was Myrnin’s voice. His
hunting
voice. Claire had heard it before, and it gave her immediate, life-threatening chills. He stepped out of the dark. The cheerfully neon Hawaiian clothes were gone. He was dressed in elegant black, with a bloodred vest, and his long hair was freshly combed and rippling in waves down to his shoulders, very old-school Gothic vamp. He was smiling.

Not in a nice way at all.

“Visitors,” he said, still using that creepy, oddly soothing voice. There was something about it that made Claire feel a little sleepy. A little . . . relaxed. “So lovely to have visitors. I get them so seldom. Especially here.”

“Myrnin,” Claire said. He was steadily coming toward her, without looking like he was moving at all. His large eyes were fixed on her, luminous,
fascinating
. She couldn’t blink.

“Yes, my dear. How surprising that you know.”

“Know what?” She felt stupid, almost drugged. He was close now, gliding up to her. She felt the cool brush of his fingers on her cheek.

“My name,” he said. “How surprising that you know my name. Perhaps you should do me the courtesy of giving me yours.”

A rush of adrenaline spilled into her body.
He didn’t know her.
Or Michael. Or Shane. He was acting like they were strangers.

To him, they were intruders.

She licked her lips and said, “Myrnin, I work for you. I’m Claire. Remember? Claire.”

“Nice try, sweet one, but I already have an assistant. Maybe I’ll save you for her. She’d like you.”

Ada. Claire’s heart thumped painfully as she took it in. Myrnin had been sucked under by the machine, and he thought Ada was still here. Still alive.

“You’re talking about Ada,” she said, and tried to keep her voice calm and even. “She’s not here, Myrnin. She’s not coming back. Ada’s dead.”

It was kind of cruel to say it like that, but she needed to snap him out of it, and that was the verbal equivalent of a hard slap.

Myrnin pulled up short, dark eyes gone cool and unreadable, and then he slowly smiled. “I’d know if she was gone,” he said. “Can’t you feel her? She’s here. She’ll be back. I know she’ll be back.”

“Claire?” Shane said. He started to move toward them, but Myrnin suddenly backhanded him and sent him rolling toward the wall.

“No interruptions,” he said. “I’m
talking
!” He was suddenly, terrifyingly angry. “Why would you say something like that? I wonder. Unless you’d done something to Ada . . .”

“Stop,” Michael said urgently. “Claire, come over here.”

Myrnin made an exaggerated, annoyed motion with his hands and turned to face Michael. “I
said
no interruptions! Oh—you’re not human, are you? Hmm. One of Amelie’s latest, I take it. I thought she’d sworn off new fledglings after that last disaster.”

Michael grabbed Claire’s arm and pulled her close. “Yeah, well, I’m Amelie’s, and this one’s mine. That other one, too.”

Shane, Claire thought, would punch him for that one. When he finally got up.

Myrnin’s eyebrows slowly rose. “Are you telling me that you brought snacks, and you’re not going to share? How rude. You’re an intruder, too, you know. I don’t have a taste for you just now, but these other two . . . Well, I haven’t drunk a good intruder in
ages
.”

“Myrnin, wake up!” Claire yelled. “It’s
Claire
! You know who I am!”

Myrnin shook his head sadly. “You’d better eat her now,” he told Michael. “She’s far too loud. Makes my head hurt.”

And then he hit his forehead with the heel of his hand, again and again and again, frighteningly hard. Claire clung to Michael. She’d seen Myrnin do crazy things, but this was just . . . creepy.

He stopped. He’d opened up a cut on his forehead, and blood that was slightly paler than a human’s trickled down toward his eyes. It closed in seconds. “That’s better,” he breathed. “Now. You, new fledgling. You owe me a tribute, since you came here without permission. Choose.”

“Choose what?” Michael asked.

“Which one I will have.” Myrnin’s fangs came down, lazy and terrifying, and he reached out for Claire. “I think I like this one.”

Michael kicked him, right in the chest. It drove Myrnin back, but not very far.

Myrnin stopped smiling, and tilted his head forward. It made him look crazier. “That wasn’t wise, blood child. Not wise at all.”

“Run,” Michael said to Claire, and shoved her toward the tunnel. Myrnin snarled and jumped, but Michael got him in midair and pulled him down, hard.

Myrnin missed grabbing onto Claire’s foot by about three inches. She hesitated at the base of the ladder. Shane was still in there, maybe hurt. She couldn’t just run.

She heard Michael let out a muffled cry, and then Myrnin said, in a voice that echoed silkily off the tunnel walls, “I like rats that run. Here, little rat. I’m going to save you for Ada.”

She swarmed up the ladder as fast as she could. She was halfway up when she felt it vibrate. Myrnin had jumped and landed on the rungs just a few feet below her. He was almost within grabbing range.

Claire kicked him in the face as soon as he was closer.

“Ow!” he yelped, surprised. She did it again. “Ow,
stop
, you hellion! What do you think you’re doing?”

She kicked him again, and he lost his grip on the ladder and fell. He landed on his back on the floor, looking surprised. His nose was bloody. He straightened it, and it snapped back in place with a soft crackle.

“Ow,” he said again, and shook his head. “I won’t let you live to regret that, you know.”

Claire raced up the last few steps and flung herself out onto the lab floor, just as Myrnin tensed his legs and launched straight up, intending to grab her at the top of the ladder. He missed, hit the floor awkwardly, and rolled smoothly up to a crouch.

Claire scrambled up to her feet and ran for her backpack. She didn’t want to use the silver, but she didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t just let him eat her.

Myrnin seemed to have temporarily lost interest in her. He was standing now, looking around at the lab, mouth half-open. “What . . . what in the devil happened? Did Ada do this? My. She’s quite a good housekeeper, isn’t she? I remember it being so much messier.”

Claire grabbed her backpack on the run and unzipped it. She cut her fingers on the knife she’d crammed inside, but groped around for the hilt and got it out just as Myrnin stopped looking at the scenery and started running for her.

He leaped from table to table, zigzagging as she did, eyes glowing dull red. She saw Michael climb out of the tunnel below, and then pull Shane up after him. Neither one of them looked very good.

Claire waited until Myrnin got close, and then slashed the knife across his chest. She just missed his face.

He stopped, looked down, and said, “Oh, no, I
loved
this vest.” And then the silver started to burn him. His eyes went from dull red to bright, furious crimson.

He looked at Claire. “
No one
fights back. That’s strictly against the rules.”

“This isn’t you,” she said. “Please don’t do this.”

For a second she actually thought she saw something surface in him, something she recognized . . . but then it was gone, and the old Myrnin, the cruel one, was back. “If you come here again,” he said, “I’ll tear you apart. This is
my
home. You’re not welcome.”