Ghost Town

“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

Eve 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