Ghost Town

“I can’t!” Claire panted. Her head was pounding, and she couldn’t keep her balance. Michael didn’t hesitate. He grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder, and kept running. She could see behind him.

Vampires were coming out of the doors and running after them. Jumping after them, eating up the corridor in big bursts of movement. “Faster!” she screamed. He got to the intersection of hallways and raced so fast that she felt even dizzier from the rush of wind and blurring paneling. Okay, she was not going to throw up on Michael’s shoulder. She just couldn’t.

Michael banged through a door, and suddenly she was airborne. That didn’t help the disorientation at all, but at least it was fast, and she felt the impact when he landed—where?

Oh, at the bottom of the stairwell. She craned her neck and looked up three stories, where the vampire pursuers were jumping after them, and one of them was on the railing, readying to leap right on top of them.

Michael didn’t wait. He threw open the door to the parking garage and the next thing she knew, she was being tossed into the back of the Death Limo and Eve was peeling out of the garage like her tailpipe had caught fire.

Claire breathed as deeply as she could, and in a few seconds, the world stopped twisting around quite so badly. She opened her eyes and looked up at Shane, who was holding her in his lap.

“You were supposed to call,” he said. He sounded angry.

“Sorry,” she said. “We were busy being almost killed.”

Eve screamed through the window at the front, “Michael? Michael, what happened? Are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” he said. He must have been, because Claire couldn’t imagine how he’d outrun all those vamps if he hadn’t been. He was lying down, though, on the other bench seat in the back. “They won’t chase us outside of the square.”

“I’m not taking any chances! We are going straight home!”

Nobody had any argument for that. Claire was thinking, But we have to do something. Anything.

The problem was, everything she could think of ended with them getting killed.

She had to think of something.

Only she didn’t. It was late, and they were all tired, and her head hurt. She fell asleep on the couch, and Shane finally woke her and told her to go to bed. She wanted to stay with him, but she knew she shouldn’t, not when she was trying to think, and her head hurt so badly.

She didn’t remember getting upstairs to her room, but she must have, because when she woke up, sunlight was streaming through the curtains and laying a warm blanket across her bed. She felt better, until she poked at the bump on her head; that still hurt. But it was healing, she could tell.

She still hadn’t thought of what she was going to do, except that she needed to get to Myrnin, convince him to help, or else she needed to take down the computer’s power. Maybe the power station, she thought, but she’d been there once, and unless she was planning to get a full Navy SEAL team and maybe Hannah’s old marine buddies, there was no way she could take out the power there.

It had to be done in the lab. Which left the problem of the crazy vampire who didn’t remember her and wanted to have her for lunch.

There was nothing coming to her, nothing at all. Amelie might help, or she might not. There was no telling what she, or Oliver, would do.

It was still early enough that Michael was probably home, but Claire thought today was Eve’s early day at Common Grounds; she put in only about sixteen hours a week there, but she tried to do it early mornings, because she really didn’t like spending evenings there anymore. So she’d probably already been up and gone, if she was intending to work at all. Shane would be in bed. He never got up before ten unless he had to.

Sure enough, when Claire went into the bathroom, there was fog on the mirror, and still-warm drops in the shower, and Eve had left her makeup scattered all over the counter. Claire put it back in the bag and got out her own, which wasn’t much beyond an eye pencil and some mascara. She showered and dressed fast, and had her mind on what she was going to say to Oliver when she opened the bathroom door, and ran straight into Michael.

He looked at her in shock—so much shock, in fact, that she checked to make sure she’d remembered to put her pants on. She had. “What?” she demanded. “Do I have something on my face?”

“What are you doing in my bathroom?” Michael asked, and took a giant step back. “How did you get here?”

Oh, crap. She’d been afraid Michael was susceptible to whatever was going on, and now here it was again. Just like Amelie. Just like Myrnin. Just like Monica, for that matter.

He didn’t wait for her answer. He ran to the end of the hall, to her room, and threw open the door. “Dad . . .” He fell silent, staring at the room. “Dad?” He backed up slowly. “What the hell is going on?”

Claire sighed. It seemed like her whole life was being spent telling people the bad news. “I know you’re not going to believe this, but I live here, Michael. I’ve been here for a while now.”

He turned back on her, fists clenched. She’d never seen that look on his face—scared and desperately angry. “What did you do with my parents?”

“I promise, I didn’t do anything! Look, you can ask Eve if you don’t believe me, or Shane—”

“Did Monica put you up to this?” Michael asked, and pushed her. That was a shock, and the grim, furious expression he had made her feel cold inside. “Just get out. Get out of our house!”

“Wait!” It was no use; he wasn’t going to believe her any more than Hannah had, or Amelie, or Myrnin. “Wait, don’t—”

Michael pushed her again. With vampire strength.

Claire flew backward, fell, rolled, and almost slid down the stairs before she grabbed hold of a banister railing to pull herself to a stop. Michael stood there, looking utterly astonished; he stared at her, down at his hands, and back again.

“You’re a vampire, Michael,” Claire said, and scrambled up. Her head was hurting again. No surprise there. “If you don’t remember anything else, remember that. You can hurt people, even if you don’t mean to do it.”

“Get out!” he yelled. He looked really upset, and very, very angry. Bad combo for a vampire. His eyes had taken on a wicked crimson shimmer.

Claire went down the steps, grabbed her backpack from where it was leaning against the wall, and dashed out the door. Once she was outside in the sun, she stopped and pulled out her cell phone, and dialed Shane’s number. It rang and rang and rang, and finally he picked up and mumbled something that didn’t really sound like a word.

“Wake up! Watch your back,” she said. “Michael doesn’t remember who I—”

She didn’t have any time to say more, because Michael had followed her out onto the porch, and as she started to turn, she saw that he was coming after her.

In the sunlight.

“No!” Claire yelled, and dropped her phone and the backpack to the ground. Michael’s skin started to sizzle and smoke instantly on contact with the sun, and he just stood there, staring down at himself, as if this was some horrible dream, and he was waiting to wake up. “Michael, get back! Get in the shade!”

“I’m not . . . I’m not a . . .” He staggered and fell to his knees. “I’m not a vampire.”

“Michael! ”

She didn’t have a choice. She’d have to risk him turning on her, like Myrnin; she couldn’t leave him out here to fry. He didn’t seem to understand that he had to move—or maybe he wasn’t able to. She couldn’t tell.

“Shane! Shane, get your ass down here!” she screamed, loud enough that she hoped he could hear it over the still-on cell and through the windows. She couldn’t wait for him, though.

She dumped her backpack and raced back to grab Michael under the arms. His shirt was on fire, and she batted it out before trying to drag him, but as soon as she did, the shirt burst into flames again, singeing her own clothes. The shadows were still three feet away. If she got him there, he’d be all right; she knew he’d be all right . . . but he was struggling now, and she kept losing her grip.

Do it, just do it! Claire took a better hold and gritted her teeth and pulled with all