Ghost Town (25 page)

“Oh, come on, just this once,” Eve said. “Protects your neck. As in your arteries and veins? That’s kind of crucial, right?”

“Thanks for the thought, but it doesn’t go with my shoes.”

“You’re seriously going to worry about what people think right now?”

“No, I’m worrying about people taking pictures and putting them on Facebook. That crap never dies. Kind of like you, Mikey.”

Michael, straight-faced, said, “He’s got a point, because I would definitely take pictures. So would you.”

Eve had to grin. “Yeah, I would. Okay, then. But you’d look glam. I could fix you up with silver eye shadow to match.”

“Tell you what: you can be Glammera the vampire hunter. I’ll stick with being manly and heavily armed.”

Michael snorted and picked up some wooden—i.e., mostly nonlethal—stakes, which he stuffed in his jacket. “You guys ready?”

“Guess so.” Shane gave his small crossbow another once-over, then put it in the carry bag. Eve had packed a (for her) huge purse full of stuff. The purse, of course, had a shiny yellow happy face on it—with fangs. Claire stuck with her unfashionable but useful backpack. She’d emptied out all of her books and left them stacked on the table. She had no idea when she’d actually get back to school, but it certainly wouldn’t be today.

Shane dropped the silver choker to the table, shuddered, and led the way out of the Glass House to the car. Michael locked up behind them, and Claire thought about how natural it was for them now to watch one another’s backs. There wasn’t even any discussion. Shane went first, keys to Eve’s hearse in hand; Eve had, of course, called shotgun, so she was heading straight for the passenger side. Claire was checking shadows and heading for the back of the long black coach, and Michael zipped down fast and joined her as she opened the back. He was the last one in, and smacked the roof to signal Shane as he and Claire sat down on the long bench seats in the back.

Eve had added some kind of color-changing strips along the inside of the roof. “What’s with the disco lights?” Michael said, rolling down the window between the driver’s compartment and the back.

Eve turned around, and her face brightened. “You like it? I thought it looked really cool. I saw it in a movie, you know, in a limo.”

“It’s cool,” Michael said, and smiled at her. She smiled back. “Can’t wait to lie here and watch it with you.”

Claire said, “You don’t have to wait; it’s working now. Look—Oh. Never mind.” She blushed, feeling stupid that she hadn’t gotten that one in the first second. Eve winked at her.

“Shouldn’t you be calling Amelie and getting us some kind of parking permit?” Eve asked. Claire nodded, glad to be off the hook, and made the call. It rang to voice mail, and Claire left her a message. She was just hanging up when she spotted a parked police car out of the window.

Hannah Moses was standing alongside it. Just . . . standing. Looking around.

“Wait,” Claire said, and leaned over to grab Shane’s shoulder. “Stop. She can get us in; she’s got permission to go to Founder’s Square anytime she wants.”

Shane pulled in behind Hannah’s cruiser, and Claire got out to talk to her. She moved fast, because this wasn’t a well-lit area, and everything seemed really dark tonight anyway. Even with the hearse’s headlights shining, it felt shadowed.

“Hannah!” she said. “We need some help. Can you get us in to see Amelie?”

Hannah turned to look at her, and there was something odd in her body language. She seemed tense and ready to react. She kept her hand near the gun in her holster. “Who are you?” she asked. “Name.”

“Oh, crap,” Claire said. “You’ve got it, too.”

“Name!” Hannah snapped. “Now!”

“Uh, okay, I’m Claire. Claire Danvers. You know me.”

Hannah shook her head. “This is Morganville,” she said. “I can’t be in Morganville. I was in . . . I was in Kandahar. I was
just there
.” She looked down at her police uniform and shook her head again. “I wasn’t wearing this. I’m not a cop. I’m a marine. This can’t be happening.”

“Hannah, you’re having a . . . a flashback, that’s all. You’re not a marine; you’re not in Afghanistan. You’re here, in Morganville. You’re the chief of police, remember?”

Hannah just looked at her as if Claire were crazy.

“Look at what you’re wearing,” Claire said. “Police uniform. Why would somebody kidnap you, bring you here, and change your clothes? What sense does that make?”

“It doesn’t,” Hannah admitted. “None of this makes any sense. I need to call in.”

“Call in
where
?”

“To my commanding officer.”

“Hannah, you’re not
in
the marines now! You don’t
have
a commanding officer!”

Hannah didn’t seem to hear her this time. “They’ll think I’m AWOL. I need to tell them what happened.” Then she looked around again, and the look in her face was a little desperate. “Except I don’t know what happened.”

“I just told you! Flashback!”

“This isn’t a combat flashback!”

“No, it’s . . .” Lying, Claire figured, was now the only way to go. “You’ve been drugged. You have to believe me. You live here, in Morganville. You’re the chief of police.”

Hannah was shaking her head—not as if she didn’t believe it, but as if she didn’t
want
to believe it. “I’m not going back to Morganville. No way in
hell
am I signing up for that.”

But you did
, Claire started to say, then held it back. She didn’t know why Hannah had changed her mind; maybe something had happened to her while she was in Afghanistan, or since she came back from there. But whatever it was, in Hannah’s mind, it hadn’t happened yet.

“I know this is hard,” Claire said. “But we need your help. Really. All you have to do is call in permission for us to go into Founder’s Square. Would you do that?”

“I don’t know you people,” Hannah said. “And you’re driving around in a damn
hearse
. It doesn’t exactly make me want to trust you. . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she blinked as the hearse’s doors opened, and Michael and Eve got out. “You’re . . . you’re the Glass kid. The guitar player. I remember you. And—” Hannah did an absolute double take, the most surprised Claire had ever seen her. “Eve? What the hell did you do to yourself? Have your parents seen how you look?”

Claire exchanged a mute second of stares with her friends, and Eve finally said, “Ah, yeah, they’ve seen it. I’ve been dressing like this for about three years; don’t you remember?”

“No,” Hannah said, and suddenly sat down on the sidewalk. Just . . . sat. She put her head in her hands. “No, I don’t remember that. I remember . . . you were in school with my brother Reggie, before he . . . I saw you at the funeral. . . .”

Eve crouched down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I know,” she said. “But then you went to Afghanistan, and then you came back, and now you’re the head police chick. You have to remember that!”

“I don’t,” Hannah said, and Claire realized with a shock that she was crying silently, tears running down her face. “I don’t remember that at all.” She pulled in a deep breath, wiped her face, and let Eve help her to her feet. “All right. Let’s say all that’s true, even if I don’t believe it. What do you want?”

“Just . . . we need you to call in to the guard post at Founder’s Square and give us a pass to see Amelie,” Claire said. “Please. I’ve tried phoning. She’s not answering.” And Claire found that she was really, truly worried. Not that Amelie was a friend, exactly, but the idea of a Morganville without her was . . . unthinkable. She couldn’t get the image of Amelie lying limp on the floor in Oliver’s arms out of her head.

Hannah stared at her like she was even crazier than before. “We don’t ever call the Founder by name.”

“We do now,” Claire said. “I do. We all do. You have to believe me—things around here are different now. Please, Hannah. We really need this if we’re going to help people.”

Hannah took another look around at the town, at them, and finally nodded. “All right,” she said. “You tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Anything to make this all . . . stop.”

Claire got into the police car and found Hannah’s cell phone. Sure enough, it had all kinds of numbers plugged in, and one of them was to the guard station at the entrance to Founder’s Square. She dialed it for Hannah and held out the phone.

“Guard post?” Hannah said, and here, at least, she seemed to be on familiar ground. Marine training did that for you, Claire guessed. “This is Lieut—This is Hannah Moses. I’ve got four kids in a hearse who are cleared for admittance to Founder’s Square.” She covered the phone receiver and looked at Claire. “Anything else?”

“Um . . . they should let us in to see Amelie.”

Hannah took in a deep breath and nodded as she uncovered the receiver. “Yeah, and they’ll need unescorted access to the Founder’s office.” She listened, and her eyes widened a little. “Great. Thank you.” She passed the phone back to Claire, who hung it up and put it back in the car. “They said they’d put you on the list. Just like that.”

“Thanks, Hannah.” On impulse, Claire hugged her. Hannah was a solid block of muscle, but then she softened a little and hugged her back. “Go home. Don’t go out again until things stop feeling weird, okay?”

“Home?” Hannah echoed, and looked haunted again. “I’ve got no home here.”

Well, she probably did, but Claire didn’t know where it was. She thought for a second, then said, “Go to Gramma Day’s house. You used to live with her, right?”

“When I was a kid, yeah.”

“She’ll help you,” Claire said. “Tell her I said hello.”

“She’s a tough old lady,” Hannah said, but it sounded fond. “Yeah, I’ll go there. But you owe me explanations, Claire. Real ones.”

“If this goes right, I won’t owe them anymore,” Claire said. “Be careful, okay?”

Hannah smiled faintly. “I’m from Morganville,” she said. “I’m always careful.”

They left her behind, still standing beside her patrol car, and headed for Founder’s Square.

The guards looked inside the car, but didn’t search; Claire supposed they had no real reason to, with Hannah approving their visit. Eve looked nervous, but not
too
nervous, and having Michael with them guaranteed that the vamps would keep their hands off, anyway. The guards waved them on, and Eve, now driving, guided the big car down the ramp and into the underground parking area. “Damn,” she said. “I hope I can park this thing in here.”

In the end, she wedged it sideways in two spots, but since the garage was mostly deserted, Claire supposed nobody was going to complain. “Okay, we’re here,” Shane said. “What now?”

“Let’s do this smart,” Michael said. “Shane, you and Eve stay here with the weapons. I’ll go up with Claire. If we don’t come back in ten minutes, load up and come running.”

“You’re taking weapons,” Shane said.

“Just what we can conceal,” Michael said. “If we go in there with crossbows, Amelie will kill us all just for doing it. She’ll overlook personal defense. Not armed assault.”

Claire lifted her backpack. People were so used to seeing it on her that it didn’t matter what she carried inside. She knew Michael had stakes on him. It would have to be enough. “I’ll call you if it’s okay,” Claire promised, and kissed Shane quickly. He grabbed her hand when she tried to leave the car, and pulled her back for another kiss, a longer one. He didn’t want to let go, and neither did she, but he finally sighed and nodded, and she opened the back door.

“Hey, Mikey? You get her hurt and I’ll end you.”

“You let anything happen to Eve and I’ll do the same,” Michael said. He’d just finished kissing Eve, too. “While you’re at it, don’t get yourself killed, either, bro.”

“Ditto. And don’t kiss me.”

Claire cocked her head at him, exasperated. “Seriously, Shane?
Ditto?
That’s the best you can do?”

Shane and Michael exchanged identical looks and shrugs.
Guys.

“Let me show you idiots how it’s done,” Eve said, and hugged Claire fiercely. She kissed her on the cheek. “I love you, CB. Please take care of yourself, okay?”

“I love you, too,” Claire said, and suddenly her throat felt tight and her eyes burned with tears. “I really do.”

Shane and Michael watched them with identical expressions of blank bemusement, and finally Shane said, “So basically, it’s what I said. Ditto.”

Michael grinned and headed for the elevator that would take them up to the Elders’ Council level. “Coming?”

Claire picked up her heavy backpack and ran to join him.

The elevator was empty and cool, the metal gleaming as if someone had just finished polishing it. Michael pressed the button and looked down at her. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

“Your heart’s beating really fast.”

“Gee, thanks. That’s very comforting that you can hear it.”

He smiled, and it was the old Michael, the one she’d first met before all the vamp stuff. “Yeah, I know it is. Sorry. Just stay behind me if there’s trouble.”

“You sound like Shane.”

“Well, he did say he’d kill me if I got you hurt. I’m just looking after my own neck.”

“Liar.”

He ruffled her hair, like an annoying big brother, and stepped in front of her as the elevator dinged to a stop, and the doors slid open. She couldn’t see anything, but evidently the coast was clear, because Michael stepped out and walked down the hallway.

“There’s usually a guard there,” Claire said, peeking around him at the double doors of the council chamber.

“When they’re meeting,” Michael agreed. “No reason to guard an empty room. It’s this way.”

He turned at a
T
intersection and went right down another identical hallway, all paneling and marble floors and steadily burning dim lights. It
still
reminded Claire of a funeral home. No sounds in the building except for the muted sighing of central air. The air was cool, verging on cold. All the doors were unmarked, at least to human eyes.

“Up there,” Michael said. Claire nodded. She could see a vampire guard in black stationed outside of one of the doors—the woman who’d been one of the guards at the council chambers. She was sitting in a chair reading a magazine, but as Michael and Claire approached, she stood up and assumed her usual at-rest position.