Ghost Town

It could have been minutes later, or hours, but she became aware that Oliver was gone, and that Myrnin was, too. He’d moved all the chairs, and the distance of a few feet seemed too far away to try to walk. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to make it, even if she dared.

Myrnin was pacing on the other side of the lab, head down, arms folded. He looked agitated. Her weariness painted strange lines around him, jagged patterns of color that seemed to flow like oily rainbows.

He was muttering something. She had to concentrate to hear him.

“I never meant it,” he was saying. “Never meant it to happen. Can’t stand it, seeing her suffer. Must do something, do something . . . What do I do? What can I do . . . ?”

Claire thought he was talking about her, but just then, he stopped and pulled a small golden locket out of his pocket. He opened it and stared down at the picture. His face looked drawn and tortured, and she’d seen him like this before, her weary brain insisted. Back in the bad old days, before he’d gotten well, he’d had episodes like this.

It wasn’t about her at all.

It was about Ada.

“So sorry,” Myrnin whispered to the picture in the locket. “I never meant it to happen. I never meant to hurt you. But you were so sick. And it was so easy.”

Claire tried to move, and her legs threatened to collapse. She reached for the edge of the table for balance, and knocked over a glass beaker, which rolled off and smashed on the stone floor.

Myrnin whirled, and his fangs came out.

This is what happened to Ada, she thought, and felt a terrible sense of inevitability to it all. She got sick and weak, and he couldn’t help himself. Just like he can’t help himself now.

As Myrnin stepped toward her, though, she saw realization come back into his eyes, driving out the alien energy she’d seen there. He looked appalled. And frightened. “Claire?”

“I’m working,” she whispered. “I’m just so . . . I don’t think I can do this. I really don’t.”

He hesitated, then came to stand beside her. Myrnin’s cool hand closed around her wrist, drawing her attention back to him. “Focus,” he told her quietly. “You can do this. We’re close. Very close.”

They weren’t. They couldn’t be. She’d thought she understood, but she was so tired, and everything was jumbled and confused and her eyes hurt and her back hurt and she couldn’t feel her feet at all. . . .

“Here,” Myrnin said, his voice still gentle and low. “Amelie said you had to work. No one said you had to work alone.” He picked up the next part and slotted it in, took the screwdriver from Claire’s numbed fingers, and fastened it with a couple of deft, fast movements. “I’ll be your hands.”

She wanted to cry, because it was sweet, but it wouldn’t do any good. She couldn’t think anymore. Even all her meticulous labeling and drawing just looked like so many puzzle pieces jumbled up in a box. She’d understood how it all fit together, how amazing and beautiful it would be when it was finished, but . . . but now it was just noise in her head.

She felt her vision start to go gray, and her heart was pounding loud and fast.

Myrnin caught her around the waist. Claire hadn’t even realized she was about to fall. “Focus,” he told her. “You can finish this. You’re close.” He sounded a little desperate. “Don’t do this, Claire. Don’t make me see you like this. It’s too easy for me to . . . forget who I should be.”

She swallowed hard and tried—tried really hard—to stand on her own. “How long has it been?”

“Forty-nine hours since you started,” Oliver said from the shadows. “Myrnin, I don’t believe Amelie meant for you to actually hold her upright.”

Myrnin let go and stepped back, guilty relief flaring on his face. He nodded and moved away, out of reach.

Oliver watched him with a dispassionate kind of calm. “I admit, you’ve done better than I would have expected. You can still choose to have one of your friends take your punishment for you. I won’t protest the change.”

That steadied her; the thought of Eve or Shane or Michael having to suffer for her—or worse, her mom or dad—made her find the last little dregs of strength she still had. Forty-nine hours? The longest she’d ever stayed up before was thirty, and that had felt like dying.

She was still on her feet, still working, still thinking. That was some kind of victory, right?

Myrnin hovered near her, not trusting her balance, but she hardly noticed. Claire focused down on the machine, on the few parts remaining. She had to figure this out. She had to.

It was as she slotted one of the last pieces in place that she saw what was missing. “Wiring,” she said slowly. Her voice sounded thick and strange. “From here to here.” She pointed at the contact points. “Should carry the current into the output.”

Myrnin bent over, frowning, and squinted at the place she’d pointed. He grabbed an enormous magnifying glass and looked closer. “I think you’re right,” he said. “Hold on, Claire. We’re almost there.”

She nodded and grabbed the edges of the table. Her body felt like it weighed five hundred pounds. Her legs were numb. She didn’t dare try to shift at all, or she knew she’d fall.

Myrnin was back in seconds with a ball of black insulated wire and a soldering gun. He nearly burned his hair with it, since he was bending so close, but he got it right.

Claire grabbed the last two parts—a clockwork mechanism that fastened on top, and a wiring assembly that connected it to the vacuum tubes—and slotted them into place. Myrnin finished fastening them.

And that was all of it. The machine stretched out in an endless, dizzying series of loops and whirls and weird mechanisms, sprouting wires like tree roots. It didn’t look real to her. Neither did Myrnin, as he turned to her with a barely concealed red glow in his eyes.

“I think it’s done,” she said. “May I please sit down?”

“Yes,” Oliver said. “I think you’d better.”

She fainted.

She came awake to the sound of a cell phone. She knew that song. It was the ringtone she’d assigned to Shane.

She tried to reach for her cell, but her hand felt like a balloon, and a million pounds heavier than it should. She was lying down in Myrnin’s cot again, blankets pulled up neatly to her chin, and as she fumbled for the cell the door opened, and Myrnin zipped in and grabbed the phone. He put a cool hand on her forehead and said, “Sleep. You’re fevered.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

He looked at her for a long moment and smiled. “It’s nice to not be on my own, at least for now,” he said. “I’m sorry about earlier. I was . . . not myself. You understand.”

She did; she’d seen it often enough. She even understood what had pushed him close to the edge—he’d been forced to stand by and watch her grow weak and exhausted and afraid, and the predator in him had woken up. Just as it had with Ada, once upon a time.

She’d fared a little better than Ada, but she wondered now whether that was because Myrnin had stopped himself . . . or whether Oliver’s presence had warned him off. Either way, it had been a near miss.

“Are you feeling sick?” she asked. She hadn’t meant it to be quite that blunt, but she was too tired to be diplomatic. “I mean, like you were before?”

“I can control myself. I just get in moods. You know that.”

“You’d tell me if you were in trouble.”

He smiled, and it didn’t look right somehow. “Of course I would,” he said. “Rest now.”

She wanted to talk to Shane, but she wasn’t sure she could keep her eyes open long enough. Myrnin didn’t wait for her to answer.

She was plummeting deep into sleep again as she heard the door close and lock.

The next time she woke up, she felt better. Fragile and hollow, but clear, and oh, God, she needed the restroom. Luckily, Myrnin had one very small toilet closet in the room; she got out of bed to head for it and groaned, because her legs felt like they’d been dipped in fire. The muscles were still trembling. She walked very carefully, bracing herself when she could, and while she used the toilet she took stock of how she felt otherwise.