Ghost Town

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.

“Michael Glass and Claire Danvers for Amelie,” Michael said.

“You don’t have an appointment.”

“No,” Claire said. “But it’s important. We need to see her.”

“My instructions are that she isn’t to be disturbed,” the guard said.

“But it’s an emergency!”

“I have my orders.”

“Amelie will want to see us,” Michael said.

The other vampire raised her eyebrows, just ever so slightly. “It doesn’t matter whether she would,” she said. “Amelie no longer gives the orders. Oliver does, and his orders are that she should rest undisturbed. Now go or I’ll have you removed.”

“Maybe we should see Oliver,” Claire said doubtfully.

That made the vampire guard smile, with the tips of fangs showing. “An excellent idea, but again, you have no appointment. Oliver sees no human without an appointment.”

“What about me?” Michael said. They got into a staring match.

“I’m afraid Oliver is not available to anyone at the present time,” she finally said. “Orders.”

“Then we’ll just see Amelie,” Michael said, and reached for the doorknob. The guard’s hand flashed out and closed white and hard around his wrist, stopping him an inch from the metal. “Really? You’re sure you want to do it this way?”

The guard smiled, with vamp teeth showing fully now. “You’re the one pushing the issue, New Guy. I told you: go away. There’s no more discussion—” Her expression suddenly altered, and even Claire felt some kind of force sweep past them, a kind of pressure wave that made both vampires turn toward the Founder’s closed door.

Claire found she was holding her hands to her head, and couldn’t remember doing it. She looked up at Michael, who looked just as shaken as she felt. The vampire guard looked just as surprised.

“What was that?” Claire asked.

“Amelie,” Michael said. He reached again for the doorknob, and the vamp blocked him. He grabbed the vamp’s arm above the elbow with his left hand, and tipped her over his head in a sudden, shocking movement. She should have been down on the floor at the end of it, but instead she twisted in midair and came down lightly on her feet, got her balance, and slammed him against the paneled walls with her clawed fingernails at his throat.

Claire grabbed the doorknob and plunged inside the office.

Inside, it was dark. Pitch-dark. She couldn’t see a thing, and for a second she just stood there, hoping her eyes might adjust. Nothing. It was like swimming in ink. Claire groped along the wall for a switch, and found one.

When she flipped it on, she found Amelie standing about one foot away from her, staring at her with wide, ice-gray eyes. Claire yelped and flinched back against the door. Amelie leaned forward, one palm against the wood to the side of Claire’s head. With her right hand, she reached over and turned the bolt to seal them in.

“Now,” she said softly. “Who are you, little soft girl? Some novice vampire slayer who thinks she will free the town and become a hero of the people? Do you really think you have the courage to put a stake in my heart, child?”

Amelie didn’t know her. At all.

Worse, there was another vampire in the room. Oliver.

And he was lying unconscious on the floor, with blood streaming from two puncture wounds in his throat.

In retrospect, it was fairly obvious what had just happened; Claire had seen the reverse of it earlier, in the council chamber, when Amelie and Oliver had struggled for control of the town, and Amelie had lost.

It had happened again, and this time she’d won.

Claire looked at the hot, alien light in Amelie’s eyes, and thought, Yay? It was a crazy thing to think, especially since the thought sounded like Eve’s voice inside her head, but somehow it made her feel a little steadier. A little stronger.

“Don’t mind the intruder,” Amelie said, glancing sidewise at Oliver, who was showing no signs of moving. “I’ve put him in his place. As I assure you I will do for you, little slayer girl.”

Claire swallowed hard and tried to regulate the racing beat of her heart. Showing fear wasn’t going to help. “My name is Claire Danvers,” she said. “I’m Myrnin’s apprentice.”

Amelie smiled. Not a nice smile. “My dear, Myrnin would devour you for a morning snack,” she said. “He’s done it before, to those more capable and better loved by him.” The smile died. “Now. Who are you?”

“Claire! My name is Claire! You know me!”

“I do not. Nor do I see why I should bother. You shouldn’t have come here, little girl. I don’t tolerate these kinds of rebellions.”

Claire had no idea why she thought of it, but suddenly, a page from the history book that she’d bought at the used bookstore flared in front of her brain, clear as if it had been pasted on. She could see every detail of the type, even down to the water stains on the paper. “But you did,” she said. “About a hundred years ago. You let Ballard Templin go free after he took a shot at you on the street.”

That surprised Amelie enough to make her cock her head and frown, just a little. “Ballard Templin,” she repeated. “How would someone of your age know of Templin?”

“He was a gunfighter,” Claire said. “And he was hired to kill you. You took his gun away and told him to go kill the man who’d hired him. He did. It was the bank manager.”

“These are things you should not know, girl. Things that were never made public.”

Claire called up another page in her memory. “You bought the land for Morganville from a farmer named Roger Hanthorn, for about a hundred dollars. The first barrier around it was made out of wood, a big fence, like a stockade. And you used to play the harp. People said you played like an angel.”

Amelie had gone very still, and the bafflement in her face was almost human now. “You cannot know these things.”

“Your father was Bishop,” Claire said. “And you were in love with Sam Glass—”

She didn’t know what she’d said wrong, but Amelie bared her fangs and grabbed Claire by the arm. She threw her across the room in a weightless rush, and Claire lost the backpack along the way as she tumbled over and over,