Ghost Town

It was a relief hearing the ambulance come screaming toward them.

Shane went with Michael to the hospital, and the paramedics looked Claire’s hands over, gave her some kind of cream, and told her she’d be fine. She didn’t feel fine, but she ignored it. Somebody had to tell Eve, and she didn’t want to do it over the phone. There were some things that just didn’t sound right, and this was a big one.

Backpack and phone back in place, Claire ran the blocks to Common Grounds. Along the way she saw plenty of evidence that things were going even farther off the tracks—lots of police out, people wandering the streets looking lost and upset, people fighting. One woman kept trying to get into a house, and she was scaring the people inside.

Claire didn’t stop for anything.

Common Grounds, on the other hand, was weirdly normal. The overwhelming aroma of coffee hit her like a wake-up call as she came in the front door, and there were plenty of people here, huddled over their mochas and frapps and lattes as they studied or chatted or phoned.

Everybody seemed to be from TPU today. She couldn’t spot a single Morganville resident—but then, it was the middle of the morning, and most people had already left for work, unless they were out wandering the streets, confused.

There was no sign of Oliver in the place, and no sign of Eve, either. There was some other girl working the register. Claire hurried up, breathless, and said, “Where’s Eve?”

“Who?” the girl asked. She looked new. And clueless.

“Eve,” she said. “Tall girl, real Goth? She works mornings. I need her.”

The girl gave her a harassed look as she added milk and stirred, added whipped cream, and handed a cup over to one of the two boys Claire had displaced. “Are you deaf? She’s not here. I don’t know any Goths around here.”

“She works here!” That got nothing but a shrug. Not a very interested one. “What about Oliver?”

“You mean George?”

“George?” Claire stared at her, a sick feeling growing in her guts.

“Yeah, George, the owner. Not sure where he’s gotten off to today.” The girl went to ring up someone else. Claire hissed in frustration and tried to think what to do next; it was clear that whatever memory reset the counter queen had undergone had erased Oliver, too.

Claire headed for the door. She was surprised to hear the girl call after her. “Hey!” she said. Claire looked back. “Some girl came in today and tried to put on an apron. I guess she was kind of Goth; she had black hair, anyway. I told her to go home.”

Claire caught her breath. “Home,” she said. But if Eve had it, too, she might not remember the Glass House as home. Like the woman she’d seen down the street, trying to unlock a door that wasn’t any longer her own.

She’d have gone home home. To her parents’ house. That could be . . . well, either good or bad, depending. Claire wasn’t really sure. She’d been under the impression that Eve’s dad, who’d passed away last year, had been the real trouble in Eve’s home life, but what about Jason, Eve’s brother? Three years ago, he’d probably been a dangerous little creep. It might not be safe for Eve at all.

“The Rossers,” she said. “Where do they live?”

“No freaking idea,” the counter girl said, and turned to the next customer. “Yeah, what do you want?”

Claire was ready to interrogate everyone in the shop for answers, but she didn’t have to after all, because a door opened at the back of the shop, and she saw Oliver in the shadows. He looked odd—tired, wary, and very paranoid. He looked around the coffee shop, frowning, and his eyes fixed on her.

He nodded very slightly.

He knew who she was. That sent a wave of relief flooding through her, all out of proportion to things. She wanted to lunge over and kiss him. Well, ew, not really, but maybe a hug. Or a handshake.

What she did do was walk slowly and calmly over to him. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, because the last time I saw you, you had bite marks in your throat?”

He grabbed her wrist and held it very, very tightly. “You’d do well to forget you ever saw any of that.”

“There’s too much forgetting going on already.”

“Certainly true,” he said, and let go. “Were you concerned for me?”

“Not exactly.”

“Wise answer.”

“Michael has it. The memory thing. He doesn’t . . . he doesn’t remember who I am.”

Now she had Oliver’s full attention. He looked at her for a moment, then turned and walked away. She hurried after him to his office. Oliver closed the door behind her, leaned against it with his arms folded, and said, “I thought you and Michael were going to shut down that cursed machine. Haven’t you done so?”

“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?”

“Ha

“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. Fu