Ghost Town

“I will,” Amelie said. “But first, let me have the girl.”

Myrnin nodded and shoved Claire at her.

Claire tried to twist aside, but Amelie, without seeming to move at all, was somehow in the way. She took hold of Claire’s arm in an ice-cold iron grip, and looked at her with even colder eyes. “Be still,” she said. “I’ll deal with you in a moment.” Claire felt her last hope die, because there was no hint of real recognition in Amelie’s face.

Frank said, “You’d better deal with me before you settle with some little schoolkid, or I’ll get offended.”

“You’d better deal with all of us,” Shane said. “I’m not going to let you hurt her.”

“You sound brave, Shane, for someone who doesn’t remember being in my presence before,” Amelie said. “But I won’t hurt her. Or any of you.” She looked at Claire again, and this time there was warmth in her eyes. A kind of comfort. “I assure you, I am fully aware of what I am doing here.”

She remembered. Relief hit Claire, and she sighed as the tension left her body. Things were still dangerous, no question about that, but with Amelie on their side, surely it was going to be all right. She could convince Myrnin to do the right thing.

“They have Ada,” Myrnin said. “You have to find her. Please.”

Amelie let Claire go and moved her off to the side, out of Myrnin’s reach. “There’s no need,” she said, and the compassion in her voice was a kind of pain all its own. “We both know where Ada is, Myrnin. I know you remember.”

He didn’t move, and didn’t speak, but there was a frantic, feverish glitter in his eyes.

“You’ve been ill. Ada was caring for you, but she fell ill as well. Weakness has always triggered bad things in you, and she grew weak. One day—“

“No,” Myrnin said. It wasn’t so much a denial as a plea for her not to keep talking.

“One day I came here and found her dead. Drained of life.”

“No!”

“It was too late to save her, but you’d tried, once you came to your senses. Heaven knows you’d tried. You did your best to preserve what you could of her—don’t you remember?”

“No, no, no!” Myrnin sank down to a crouch, hiding his face in his hands. “No, it isn’t true!”

“You know it is,” Amelie said, and walked forward to put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “My friend, this isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation. You become ill, and you forget, and you wait for her to come back. But Ada isn’t coming back, is she? She’s gone.”

“No, she’s not gone,” Myrnin whispered. “I saved her. I saved her. She can’t die now. She can’t leave me. She’s safe. I’ll keep her safe. No one can hurt her.”

He still thought Ada was in the machine. That hurt worse than his grief, somehow; it was another tragedy in slow motion, because Claire knew she’d have to see him remember, see him lose what he loved all over again.

Just like everyone else.

But the difference was that Myrnin wanted to hang on, had to hang on. He was three years in the past, and sick, and crazy.

He’d do everything he could to stop them from taking Ada away from him. That was why he’d treated Claire like an intruder in the first place . . . because on some level he was still trying to save Ada, and he knew that Claire intended to destroy her.

“You can’t take her,” Myrnin whispered. “You can’t take her away from me. Please don’t do that.”

Amelie’s expression had slowly gone still and cold. “There’s nothing to take,” she said. “Ada’s gone. Three years ago you wept in the corner and ripped your own skin. I had to stop you from killing indiscriminately to keep from drowning in your pain. I won’t let you go back to that . . . beast. You deserve better than that.”

Myrnin shuddered and dropped his hands limply to his sides. “What are you going to do?”

“Turn it off,” she said. “Stop this madness while we still can. You’ll be better once it’s done.”

Myrnin’s eyes flared bright, shocking white, and he leaped for Amelie, fangs sliding down. She twisted out of the way, pulling Claire with her. Her guards jumped into the fight, but Myrnin was strong, and as full-on crazy as she’d ever seen him.

He tossed one the entire length of the lab, and staked the other with a broken chair leg, and screamed at her in defiance.

She didn’t move.

“Let me go!” Oliver yelled at Amelie, and shook his chains impatiently. “You can see I had nothing to do with any of this, and you need my help! Let me loose!”

She hesitated, staring at him, and then bent to expertly unlock the chains, which dropped from his wrists and ankles to the stone floor. Oliver staggered a little, gasping out a breath of relief, and Amelie reached out to take hold of his arm.

“Oliver,” she said, and held his gaze. “I remember what happened. I remember, and I am sorry.”

He hesitated, then nodded in response. It was as if he was waiting for her to make some decision— something more than simply letting him loose.

Amelie said, “I won’t be your servant in Morganville. Nor should you be mine. Equals.” She offered her hand to him, and he looked down at it, clearly taken aback. But he took it. “Now defend what is ours, my partner.”

He grinned—grinned!—and whirled to meet Myrnin in mid-leap as Myrnin attacked.

He had Myrnin down in seconds, but it was a rush of adrenaline that faded, and Claire realized that the pain of the silver chains was taking its toll on him. He slowed down. Myrnin didn’t, and in another few deadly seconds, Myrnin’s clawed fingers slashed at Oliver’s face. Oliver ducked, but lost his balance as Myrnin threw him backward in a rush.

Oliver crashed with deadly speed into a wall, and Myrnin ran in a blur for the back of the room. “He’s going downstairs!” Claire yelled, and grabbed Oliver’s fallen silver chains as Myrnin yanked the rug away. She heard the beeps of the code being entered in the trapdoor lock. “Stop him!” He’d had days here by himself, doing who-knew- what. Creating . . . things. Letting him go down there was dangerous, even more so than facing him up here.

Somehow, she still wanted to reason with him. It isn’t Myrnin, not really. She remembered the Myrnin she’d gotten to know, the kind, almost gentle man, the one who’d brought her soup and held her upright when she’d been too tired to stand on her own. The one who’d fought for her time and time again.

She had to fight for him now. She had to defend him against himself.

Frank Collins almost made it to the trapdoor, but it slammed shut at the last second, and Claire heard the lock engage with a sharp, buzzing snap of power. “Don’t touch it!” she yelled, as Shane’s dad reached for the keypad. “It’s electrified!”

“It’s the only way in,” Oliver said as he climbed painfully to his feet. “Someone has to open it.”

“It’s not the only way,” Claire replied, and looked at Amelie. “There’s a back way. Isn’t there?”

Amelie hesitated, then nodded. She turned and headed for the portal on the wall. Rudolph’s body was lying there—well, half of it—and she moved it aside and stood in front of the black doorway. Colors shifted, pulsed, and faded into darkness again.

Claire found she was holding on to someone’s hand. It turned out to be Shane, who’d come up beside her. She could feel how tense his muscles were, and how fast his pulse was going. Hers was at least twice as fast.

“There,” Amelie said. Nothing seemed different about the darkness on the other side of the doorway, but Claire felt a kind of energy radiating out of it. “I warn you, it’s not a safe course. Go quickly. I have to hold it open, or he might remember to block it.”

Oliver gave her a doubtful look, but plunged past into the darkness; it swallowed him up like a pit full of ink. Frank and West followed, and then Claire and Shane. Before they stepped through, Shane hesitated and looked over his shoulder.

Michael was right there—pale, a little unsteady, leaning on Eve’s shoulder. “Right with you, bro,” he said. “Go.”

“Are we totally sure this is a good plan?” Shane asked, quietly, to Claire. The fact that he asked her made her feel a little faint; it felt like . . . trust.

No, it was trust. Trust she hadn’t earned, but something that felt unbearably precious to her.