Ghost Town

the world was moving at nightmare speeds—Ysandre was too fast, Claire was too slow, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it as Ysandre yanked on Amelie’s white-blond hair and exposed her throat to the knife.

“No!” Oliver shouted, and sprang to his feet.

“I’m going to be your second whether you like it or not!” Ysandre yelled back, and put the knife to Amelie’s throat. “And the first thing is, get rid of the competition!”

Oliver lunged across the table. He hit her so hard he threw her into the far doors, which broke off the hinges, and Ysandre and the doors slid down the marble hallway for twenty feet before coming to a stop. She was still moving, weakly, but Oliver snapped his fingers and pointed the guards in her direction.

“No,” he said. “You’re finished. Amelie was right after all: you’re too stupid to be allowed to live.”

He went to Amelie, kicked the fallen knife out of the way, and dropped to his knees beside her. She was frozen by the stake, and where the silver touched her, it was burning her. Ysandre’s paper handle had fallen off, but Oliver didn’t wait. He grabbed the silver and pulled it out of her back in one fast motion, and threw the stake into the corner. Claire caught a glimpse of his hand turning black from the contact, but he didn’t pause, didn’t seem to feel the pain.

He cradled Amelie’s head in his hands. “It’s out,” he said. “Can you hear me? Amelie! ”

She still wasn’t moving. Oliver pulled her into his arms. The female guard came back, pulling Ysandre’s struggling body by the hair, and he snapped, “Get Theo Goldman. Now. And put that one in a cage until I decide how we should be rid of her. Something painful, preferably.”

Amelie’s eyes slowly blinked. She focused on Oliver’s face. Claire had never seen her look so pale; her lips looked blue, and even her eyes seemed faded. “You should have let her finish,” she whispered. “Better death than dishonor; isn’t that our code?”

“Hundreds of years ago it was,” he agreed. His voice was different now. Gentle. “You’re the last one to cling to the past. How bad is the pain?”

She seemed to think about it. “Compared to what? To what you’ve done to me?”

He was holding her hand, and now he raised it to his lips. “I wouldn’t have acted unless you forced me. But we both know that I don’t lose once I’m challenged.”

“You did,” she whispered. “Once. To me.”

He kept her hand at his lips. “So I did,” he said, so softly Claire almost missed it. “I will never hurt you again. I swear it.” He hesitated, and then drew one sharpened fingernail across his wrist. “Drink. I give it to you freely.”

A drop of his blood hit her lips, and she gasped, opening her eyes wide. She reached for his arm and pulled the cut to her lips, drank, and then let go. She sighed and went limp. Her eyes closed. Claire’s throat closed up tight. She wanted to ask, but couldn’t.

Richard asked for her. “Is she dead?”

“Not yet,” Oliver said. “A silver stake wouldn’t kill her immediately at her age, even in her weakened condition with the loss of blood. But she needs additional treatment.” He looked up at Richard, at Hannah, and finally at Claire. “No one speaks of this. No one.”

“You mean we don’t say that you saved her?” Richard asked. “Or that you love her?”

Without blinking Oliver said, “Say it again and we will be electing a new mayor, boy. I’m not in the mood to tolerate more human nonsense today. Do you understand me?”

“I understand that you want to turn this town into a cattle pen. That my people are going to be hunted and killed without mercy. So you know what, Oliver? If you want to run Morganville your way, you won’t just be looking for a new mayor. You’ll be looking for a place to hide while we tear this town apart.” Richard got up and just . . . walked out. Hannah sat for a moment, then got up and followed him.

Leaving Claire alone with him.

Oliver was looking down at Amelie’s still, quiet face. He said, without raising his head, “You should have gone with them. You have no part in this.”

“I can’t go,” Claire said. “I need to tell you something.”

“Then say it and leave.”

Her throat was dry, and she knew—knew—that he was ready to kill the next person who annoyed him just now. Amelie wouldn’t, couldn’t stop him. But she had to say it. She had to try.

“You said you had to kill a vampire last night,” she said. “Not the one from the diner?”

“No,” Oliver said. He didn’t look up at her. “An old friend. I couldn’t stop her any other way.”

“Did she say anything?”

“What?” Oliver looked up, frowning. “No. She was beyond speaking anything like sense.”

“But she did speak.”

“Only to scream that nothing was right.”

That confirmed it, and Claire felt a cold, heavy sense of guilt. “People are forgetting who they are. Or where. Or else they know something’s wrong, but they can’t tell what it is, and it’s driving them crazy.”

“Then it’s obviously not confined to humans,” Oliver said. “Blood analysis on the affected vampires shows nothing. It’s not the same as the illness we were enduring before.” So he did know. And he’d even done something about it, or tried.

“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

Myrnin 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.”