Ghost Town (28 page)

Claire headed for the door. She was surprised to hear the girl call after her. “Hey!” she said. Claire looked back. “Some girl came in today and tried to put on an apron. I guess she was kind of Goth; she had black hair, anyway. I told her to go home.”

Claire caught her breath. “Home,” she said. But if Eve had it, too, she might not remember the Glass House as home. Like the woman she’d seen down the street, trying to unlock a door that wasn’t any longer her own.

She’d have gone
home
home
.
To her parents’ house. That could be . . . well, either good or bad, depending. Claire wasn’t really sure. She’d been under the impression that Eve’s dad, who’d passed away last year, had been the real trouble in Eve’s home life, but what about Jason, Eve’s brother? Three years ago, he’d probably been a dangerous little creep. It might not be safe for Eve at all.

“The Rossers,” she said. “Where do they live?”

“No freaking idea,” the counter girl said, and turned to the next customer. “Yeah, what do you want?”

Claire was ready to interrogate everyone in the shop for answers, but she didn’t have to after all, because a door opened at the back of the shop, and she saw Oliver in the shadows. He looked odd—tired, wary, and very paranoid. He looked around the coffee shop, frowning, and his eyes fixed on her.

He nodded very slightly.

He knew who she was. That sent a wave of relief flooding through her, all out of proportion to things. She wanted to lunge over and kiss him. Well, ew, not really, but maybe a hug. Or a handshake.

What she did do was walk slowly and calmly over to him. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, because the last time I saw you, you had bite marks in your throat?”

He grabbed her wrist and held it very, very tightly. “You’d do well to forget you ever saw any of that.”

“There’s too much forgetting going on already.”

“Certainly true,” he said, and let go. “Were you concerned for me?”

“Not exactly.”

“Wise answer.”

“Michael has it. The memory thing. He doesn’t . . . he doesn’t remember who I am.”

Now she had Oliver’s full attention. He looked at her for a moment, then turned and walked away. She hurried after him to his office. Oliver closed the door behind her, leaned against it with his arms folded, and said, “I thought you and Michael were going to shut down that cursed machine. Haven’t you done so?”

“No, we—I—” She had no excuses, really. “Not yet. I was going to try this morning, but I really need help. Michael’s . . . Michael’s not it. What about Amelie?”

Oliver took in a deep breath that, as a vampire, he didn’t really need except for talking, and then let it out. “Amelie is . . . struggling to understand, but she’s having a difficult time accepting the world as it is when part of her is insisting on seeing the world as it was. She let me go. I’m not sure how long that will last.” He shook his head, as if pushing all that away. “Tell me what you think the machine is actually doing.”

“Instead of wiping memories of people leaving town, it’s broadcasting a wider field, and it’s affecting people
in
town. I think it’s wiping out at least three years of memories. Maybe more for some people; I don’t know.”

“And how do you come by this startling calculation?”

“Hannah says she was in Afghanistan yesterday,” Claire said. “Michael talks about his mom and dad as if they were still living in the house. Amelie acts like Sam Glass is still alive, but missing. Monica thinks she still has a shot at dating Shane. And Myrnin . . . Myrnin isn’t at all like the Myrnin I know.”

“No, he wouldn’t be,” Oliver said, thoughtful. “When I came to town he was already far gone. He would have been completely unpredictable three years ago. Amelie doesn’t remember Sam’s death, you said. She certainly doesn’t remember my arrival, either. It’s a complete puzzle to her as to how I came to enter Morganville without her knowledge. I guarantee that she’s well on the way to blaming me for this entire disaster.”

“Why you? Why not Myrnin?”

“When I came to town, Amelie and I . . . we had a great deal of history behind us, none of it good. It took us work to reach the understanding we have. If she doesn’t remember that, it will be war all over again.”

“It’s worse than that. Michael walked out into the sun,” she said flatly. “He doesn’t remember he’s a vampire.”

Oliver’s eyes widened just a bit, and then he said, deliberately neutral, “I hope that the sun convinced him otherwise. And I trust you called for help.”

“He’s on his way to the hospital. I came to get Eve, but I think she’s gone to her parents’ house. She won’t remember me, either.”

“If Michael’s been injured, they won’t take him to the hospital; they’ll take him straight to the blood bank. He’ll be all right, as long as he wasn’t in the sun for long. Some blood, a little rest, he’ll heal fine. The bigger issue is that if he refuses to believe in his current condition, he’ll lose control and feed recklessly. Probably on one of his friends, because you’re all too thick to take proper care.”

“I know,” Claire said, and leaned wearily against Oliver’s desk, which was loaded with papers, unopened mail, pens, paper clips . . . messy. That made her feel better about him, somehow. “We need to stop this, but Myrnin put a password on the computer. I can’t shut it down by myself.”

“Pull the plug,” he said. Funny. Oliver and Shane thought alike, and just about at the same speed. Claire didn’t imagine either one of them would like that comparison, though.

“I can’t do it with Myrnin trying to snack on me. I’m kind of tired of just about getting killed for now. If you go with me and keep him off of me—”

Oliver, at least, had a sense of urgency. He grabbed his long leather coat, hat, and gloves, and dressed for the sun. “Then let’s go,” he said. “The sooner, the better. I can’t guarantee how long Amelie will allow me to operate freely.”

“But Eve—I was going to get her. Let her know about Michael.”

“We’ll go by the Rosser house on the way, if you insist,” he said. “But if she’s not there, we go on. No arguments.”

That was fine with Claire. She was too tired to argue. As she tried to pick up her fallen backpack, she winced. Oliver grabbed her wrist and looked at her hand. “You’re burned,” he said. He sounded surprised, and continued. “You tried to pull him out of the sun. With your bare hands.”

“I had to try,” she said. “He’s my friend.”

Oliver gazed at her for a few seconds, then shook his head and let go. “Just don’t let it slow us down.”

TWELVE

E
ve was right: limos felt a whole lot like hearses, when you got right down to it.

Oliver drove fast, which was alarming, because Claire of course couldn’t see a thing through the extremely dark windows. She concentrated on air bags and seat belts and all the nice safety features that car manufacturers built in these days. Vamps couldn’t opt out of air bags, could they? Well, at least there were seat belts. That was something.

“Why not you?” Oliver asked.

“What?”

He glanced over at her. “Why not you, or me? What keeps us from being affected by this miasma?”

“What’s a miasma?”

“A fog,” he said. “An influence.”

“I don’t know,” Claire said. “To be honest, I don’t know if we’re immune, or if it just takes longer for some people, or if it’s just completely random. But it could be that because we weren’t here three years ago, it doesn’t affect us.”

“Hannah Moses wasn’t here, either.”

“Yeah, but she’s
from
here. Maybe there’s a connection. We’re both—”

“Outsiders,” Oliver finished. “Interesting. I’m not certain how that would work.”

“It might not, for much longer,” Claire said. “It hit Myrnin sooner than Amelie. It hit some people right off the bat, and others days later. I don’t think it’s following any kind of pattern. Maybe we’re going to get it after all.”

“Are you armed?” Oliver asked her.

She glanced down at her backpack and instantly, instinctively held back. “No.”

“Lie to me again and I’ll put you out on the street and do this myself.”

Claire swallowed. “Uh, yeah.”

“With what?”

“Silver-coated stakes, wooden stakes, a crossbow, about ten bolts . . . oh, and a squirt gun with some silver-nitrate solution.”

He smiled grimly at the dark windshield. “What, no grenade launchers?”

“Would they work?”

“I choose not to comment. Very well, I will take your crossbow. Try to use nonlethal methods, if you please; there’s been enough disaster in this town recently. Also, I assume you’re still fond of Myrnin, in some way.” He said that as if he had no clue why that might be the case. Well, she could understand that, from his point of view.

“I won’t kill him,” she said. “But I’ll hurt him if he tries to hurt me.”

“An excellent strategy, except that if you hurt him, he
will
kill you, most likely. So leave Myrnin to me. You do your job, and this will soon be over. . . .” His voice faded as he made a turn, and Claire saw something happen in his face, which was an eerie blue-white in the car’s dashboard lights. She just wasn’t sure what it was. “Get down, Claire.”

“What—”

He didn’t tell her again, just reached over, grabbed her head, and pulled her sideways on the seat, then pushed her down into the wheel well.

The windshield rattled, and all of a sudden there were holes in it, sunlight streaming in. No, that hadn’t been the windshield rattling. Something had hit the car.

Bullets
had hit the car.

Oliver swerved the limousine and accelerated, but there was more noise, and this time Claire realized it was gunfire. The entire windshield fell out, and Oliver made a choked sound as he got a faceful of blazing sun.

But he kept driving, until they hit something with a crash. Above her, Claire saw a flash of white as she was thrown forward against the carpet.

Great, the air bags had deployed, and she was in the wheel well. But at least she hadn’t had far to go, and in fact, she didn’t think she was hurt at all, though there was some glass that had fallen on her.

Oliver was fighting to get free of his seat belt and the deflated air bag, but he didn’t make it. Someone yanked open his door, and Claire guessed they cut the seat belt, or broke it, because they dragged him out of the limo. He was struggling, but their attackers must have been vamps, because he wasn’t getting away.

They don’t know I’m here
, Claire realized, and stayed where she was, curled into a very small ball in the shadows under the dash. Her backpack had slid off the seat and was next to her. She carefully unzipped it and pulled out the small, folding crossbow, cranked it open, and got out the bolts. She did it very carefully, hoping the noise of the fighting outside would cover up any sound of what she was doing. It must have, because nobody reached into the car to grab her.

She heard Oliver being dragged off, and finally risked slithering out of her hiding place to peek over the dashboard, out the sharp-edged hole where the windshield had once been.

There were vampires out, all in their heavy coats and hats and gloves. Some carried umbrellas, which was surprisingly practical of them. A whole group of them, maybe twenty in total, were standing in the shade of a building.

Amelie had an umbrella, but she didn’t carry it herself. She had a minion for that. Her umbrella, like all the others, was black, but the silk suit she was wearing was icy white, with hints of blue. The color of dead lips, Claire thought, and wished she hadn’t. Amelie looked
dangerous
, even though she was just standing there, hands folded, watching as Oliver was dragged over and dumped at her feet.

“I knew it was you,” she said. She sounded viciously angry. Claire could just barely hear her, but she certainly didn’t want to try to get any closer. “. . . think you wouldn’t be suspected? Such an obvious . . .”

The wind kept blowing, and it made it harder for Claire to hear what was going on. Oliver said something, and it must have not made Amelie happy, because she snapped her fingers and a couple of other vampires grabbed his arms and raised him to his knees. Claire couldn’t help but think how wildly all this had reversed. First Amelie had been at his mercy; then he’d been at hers; and now she had him once again.

That wouldn’t make Oliver happy. Not at all.

“Don’t spin your tales with me,” Amelie said. “I don’t believe we were ever . . .” More wind, and Claire lost the words. “. . . coming here. You were invited, once. You refused. Now you think you can just come here and scheme to take over—”

Oliver laughed. It had a raw, desperate sound to it. Whatever he said then, Amelie drew back a step, and then she shook her head. “Useless,” she said. “Take him to the cells. I’ll decide how to deal with him later.”

There were way too many for Claire to even
think
about staging any kind of rescue. Oliver was clearly hurt, and she didn’t think he’d appreciate any Rambo-style heroics, anyway.

But she’d just lost her chance to stop all this. Without Oliver, she had almost no chance of getting past Myrnin.

Unless Myrnin was more himself this time.

The vamps melted into the shadows, taking Oliver with them, leaving Claire and the shot-up limo where it sat, in the middle of the road. She sat back and dialed her cell phone, but the lab number kept ringing, and ringing, and ringing. Just as she was about to hang up, there was a click, and Myrnin’s voice said, “Hello?”

“Myrnin, it’s Claire. Claire Danvers.”

Silence.

“Myrnin, do you know who I am?”

More silence, and then Myrnin said, very softly, “My head aches.”

“Myrnin, do you know who I am?”

“Claire,” he said. “Yes, Claire. I know you. Of course I know you.”

A feeling of hot relief made her just about melt into the seat cushions. Oh, thank
God
. She’d caught him at a sane moment. “Myrnin, you have to do something for me. It’s really important, okay? I need you to go down to the machine in the basement of the lab. Do that now, okay? Right now.”