Ghost Town

Crap. They didn’t know her. Once again, it hurt.

“Hi, Michael, Eve,” Claire said, and tried for a reassuring smile. “You’re right. There’s something really wrong in Morganville, no doubt about it. Eve, I’m Claire. I talked to you on the phone, remember?”

Eve let that process for a second, then turned to Michael. “Is this your girlfriend?”

“What? No! No, I never saw her before!” Michael said. “I told you, I don’t have a girlfriend! Ah, right now, I mean. Not that I never have. Or will.”

“He’s kind of between girls,” Shane said, stepping up behind Claire. “Hey, Mikey. Eve.”

Eve squealed. “Shane? Thank God, somebody sane. Well, sane-ish.” She didn’t give him a chance to answer, just threw herself at him and hugged him. “I looked for you at school. Figures you’d be skipping.”

“Don’t get all handsy, Gothica; I was busy.” Eve backed off, smiling, and Shane exchanged a manly fist-bump with Michael. “Hey, man. You’ve looked . . . better.”

“I know. I’m . . . I’m sick, that’s all,” Michael said. “What are you doing here? Wait . . .” He looked past them to the living room, where the bikers were crushing beer cans and checking weapons. “Okay, I think I have a better question. What are they doing in my house? And where are my parents?”

“Long story,” Shane said. “You guys had better sit down.”

In the end, Claire was pretty sure Eve believed it, and Michael really didn’t; he seemed firmly set on denial of everything that didn’t fit his sixteen-year-old-logic framework, including the fact that he was a vampire. He also couldn’t get used to the idea that his parents had moved away, or that his grandfather was . . . gone.

Shane had adjusted pretty fast, but Michael . . . not so much. Claire wondered if that had something to do with their personal histories; Shane had grown up adapting to whatever mood his father might have been in, learning to be on his own, learning not to assume that everything was as it seemed. Michael must have had just the opposite kind of life—stable, quiet, with parents who loved him.

Oddly, that seemed to hurt, not help, when it all got taken away from him. Claire was afraid that it was going to drive him crazy, like some of the other vampires, if they didn’t fix this soon.

“Wicked crazy stuff you’re telling us, you know,” Eve finally said, sipping her Coke. “Not that I don’t believe you. Morganville’s always running on Standard Insane Time. So. What do you want us to do, exactly?”

“Ah . . . nothing?”

“Nothing? Oh, come on, you’re going to go all Mission: Impossible and I don’t even get to wear a fake face or pose as a spy or anything? This plan sucks. I am not the friend who holds the purses.” Eve leaned forward. For Eve, she was dressed kind of plainly—a black, tight T-shirt, a silver skull necklace, the silver choker that matched the one Claire was wearing, and some temporary tattoos of roses that ran up her arms. Plain black jeans and heavy boots. “Look, I’m all Action Goth! Give me a job! I live here, too, you said. Don’t I? Doesn’t that mean I have as much to lose as anybody else?”

“Uh . . . yeah, you do. Okay, you come with me and Shane. But remember—the idea is to distract Myrnin, not kill him. And don’t put yourself in more danger than you have to.”

“If she’s going, I’m going,” Michael said. Eve looked at him, surprised. “What? I’m not letting you girls have all the fun.”

“Hey!” Shane said. “Shut up, Goldilocks.”

“I’m going,” Michael snapped back. “If this needs doing, my family’s always been the ones around here to step up and get things done. If . . . if there’s nobody else, then it’s just me. So I’ll help.”

“Just don’t vamp out on me, man.”

“I’m not a fucking vampire, Shane!”

That argument had been going on for about an hour, and evidently, Frank was really tired of it. He walked out of the living room and into the parlor, pulled the knife from his belt, and sliced Michael across the arm.

Eve screamed, and Shane jumped up and shoved his dad back. Michael stared down at his arm in shock. It was a big, ugly cut, and it bled . . . and then it stopped.

And then it slowly closed up.

Eve sat down so suddenly it was as if she’d fainted, except her eyes were still open. Shane froze, staring at Michael’s arm as it healed up.

Michael looked like he’d seen a ghost. His own ghost. “No,” he said. “No, it’s not . . . I’m not—”

“Oh, shut up,” Frank snapped. “You’re a vampire. Get over it, kid. Move on. Claire, if you want to get this done, let’s go. Seems like most people who forget things do it overnight. We can’t wait for tomorrow. Chances are, some of us standing here won’t remember what the hell we’re supposed to be doing by then. We can have your therapy session later.”

He put his knife back in the sheath and stalked away. Claire cleared her throat. “Michael? You all right?”

He ran his fingers over the smooth skin where the cut had been, wiping away the blood. Then, as if in a dream, he put his fingers in his mouth.

“It tastes good,” he said. “Eve, it—”

“Yeah, I get it; you’re a vampire,” she said. “Creepy. And okay, a little hot, I admit.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Come on. I still like you, you know, even if you . . . crave plasma.”

Michael blinked and looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. “You what?”

“Like. You.” Eve enunciated slowly, as if Michael might not know the words. “Idiot. I always have. What, you didn’t know?” Eve sounded cool and grown-up about it, but Claire saw the hectic color in her cheeks, under the makeup. “How clueless are you? Does it come with the fangs?”

“I guess I . . . I just thought . . . Hell. I just didn’t think . . . You’re kind of intimidating, you know.”

“I’m intimidating? Me? I run like a rabbit from trouble, mostly,” Eve said. “It’s all show and makeup. You’re the one who’s intimidating. I mean, come on. All that talent, and you look . . . Well, you know how you look.”

“How do I look?” He sounded fascinated now, and he’d actually moved a little closer to Eve on the couch.

She laughed. “Oh, come on. You’re a total model-babe.”

“You’re kidding.”

“You don’t think you are?” He shook his head. “Then you’re kind of an idiot, Glass. Smart, but an idiot.” Eve crossed her arms. “So? What exactly do you think about me, except that I’m intimidating?”

“I think you’re . . . you’re . . . ah, interesting?” Michael was amazingly bad at this, Claire thought, but then he saved it by looking away and continuing. “I think you’re beautiful. And really, really strange.”

Eve smiled and looked down, and that looked like a real blush, under the rice powder. “Thanks for that,” she said. “I never thought you knew I existed, or if you did, that you thought I was anything but Shane’s bratty freak friend.”

“Well, to be fair, you are Shane’s bratty freak friend.”

“Hey!”

“You can be bratty and beautiful,” Michael said. “I think it’s interesting.”

Shane cleared his throat. “Look, could we get moving? You two are giving me diabetes. And if we’re going to get this done—”

“Oh, chill out, Collins; we’re bonding, here.” Eve met Michael’s eyes squarely. “So we’re good?”

“Ah . . . I guess.”

“Don’t bite me.”

He smiled faintly. “I won’t.”

“Then let’s go save this stupid town so I can ask you out on a date already.”

“Well, you don’t actually have to wait,” Michael said. “This is kind of a date.”

“Hmm.” Eve thought it over. “Potentially fatal, dangerous— yeah, it does sound like a lot of the dates I’ve had, come to think of it. Only with at least twice the hotness.”

Shane looked at Claire and made a gagging sound, which made her laugh. That made him smile, and for a second there it was, that connection, that feeling that took her breath away, like she was flying all the way up into the sun’s warm glow.

Shane hesitated, then held out his hand to her. “We do it together,” he said. “The four of us. Right?” His fingers felt warm on hers, so familiar it almost brought tears to her eyes.