Ghost Town

Or any of them would ever see.

This is my fault, Claire thought, as she did about every minute of the day. And it’s my responsibility.

Michael was holding Eve’s hand, Claire saw, or at least, Eve was holding his for dear life. They joined her. Eve still looked petrified. After a second’s hesitation, Michael put his arm around her shoulders. “Hey,” he said, and leaned closer. “You’re going to do okay.”

“Really? How do you know?”

“Because I know you.”

Eve smiled faintly, and then grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him close. They stood that way for a second, Michael staring down into her eyes, and then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him.

“Whoa,” Shane said. “Really? Now? Seriously?”

Fifteen-year-old Shane was no kind of romantic, Claire thought, and wanted to smack him in the back of the head. Michael and Eve ignored them, and just kept on kissing until finally Eve pulled back and took in a deep breath. The white makeup really wasn’t doing much to tamp down the brightness in her cheeks.

Michael had black lipstick smeared all over his mouth. Eve reached in her pocket and dug out a tissue, and wiped it away. It was sweet and sexy at the same time, the way Michael watched her, as if he couldn’t believe his luck.

“Sorry,” Eve said. “I needed to do that. In case I die or something.”

“It’s okay,” Michael said. “Really. Anytime.” He sounded like he meant it, too.

Shane looked at Claire, and for a second she thought—But no. He said, “Don’t expect me to go all Romeo on you or anything.”

She swallowed a little bubble of disappointment. “I don’t,” she said, and kept her voice cool and level. “Just watch my back.”

“Uh . . . okay.” He sounded a little disappointed, too. What was she supposed to have said? Guys.

“Let’s go,” she said. “We’re sitting ducks out here.”

Shane stuck next to her, and Michael and Eve followed behind, still holding hands. Claire glanced over at him as they walked down the narrowing, high-fenced alley. “You scared?”

He shook his head. “Weirdly enough? Not really. It feels . . . like I’ve done this before. Or like it’s just a dream, and I’m going to wake up. I can’t tell which.” He made a fist and looked at it. “I’m bigger than I feel like I should be. Three years of growth, I guess. I feel stronger. That’s good.”

“Shane, in case we don’t . . . don’t come out of this, I wanted to say . . .”

He glanced over at her, and she felt her whole body warm from it. She remembered that look. It made her feel naked inside and out, but not in a creepy kind of way. In a way that felt . . . free. “If what you say is true, and I guess it has to be, I think I know why we’re . . . together,” he said. “I think I’d fall for you no matter what, Claire. You’re kind of awesome.”

She gri

“Damn straight,” he said, and spun a stake in his fingers as if he’d been doing it all his life. Which, she thought, maybe he had, really. “So what were you going to say, before?”

She sighed. “Nothing.”

“No, really.”

“I was going to say that I love you.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, she could tell, and for a few steps there was dead silence. “I knew I didn’t just hook up with you,” he finally said. “You know I can’t say it back, right? Because I just met you and everything?”

“I know,” she said. “But I had to say it anyway. Kind of like Eve, with the kissing.”

The shack was up ahead. Once they were inside, there would be no going back. Claire had a terrible premonition, a black, suffocating feeling that this was the last moment for them, that one of them, maybe both of them, wouldn’t come through this alive.

She was going to lose him, and to make it worse, she didn’t really even have him anymore. That hurt so badly it almost made her cry.

Shane suddenly stopped, turned to her, and grabbed her. She didn’t know why at first, and then he bent his head to hers and oh, he was kissing her, and it was tentative at first, and then sweet, and then it was . . . incredibly hot and tender and lovely and it made all those brokenhearted moments vanish like snow under the sun.

He let her go, finally, and stepped back, eyes glittering, lips damp, spots of color high on his cheeks. He didn’t say anything. Neither did she.

Finally, Michael leaned over and said, “If you’re done, shouldn’t we be moving or something?”

“Oh,” Claire said, and almost laughed. “Yeah. Let’s get this over with, because I want to do that again.”

The moment of golden joy that kiss had sparked inside her stayed with her as she unlocked the shack’s door, and even as they started down the steps toward Myrnin’s lab.

It lasted right up until they were about halfway down, and she heard Myrnin say, in a silky, dark voice, “I do believe I have visitors.”

Well, it wasn’t as if she’d expected him not to notice, but there was something alien in his voice, something that made her completely go cold inside. “Keep going,” she whispered. “Spread out. Pretend it’s vampire dodgeball.”

“Oh, now you tell us,” Eve whispered back. Her voice was shaking. “I frickin’ hate dodgeball. Good luck, new girl.”

“You, too.”

“I’m faster than the rest of you, if—because I’m a vampire,” Michael said, and it was some kind of breakthrough for him to say that. “If you get in trouble, I’ll be there.”

“Nice,” Shane said. “I’m warming up to this bloodsucking thing, Mikey.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Okay, no, I’m not, but right now let’s pretend I am.”

Claire stepped down to the floor of the lab. It was silent now, and it looked deserted. The lights were burning, but somehow it seemed very dark, and very scary. She reviewed what she had to do: get to the bookcase, move it aside, unlock the door that covered the portal, concentrate, get the portal open, and hold it while Frank and his people came through.

Yeah, that was going to be easy.

Shane, Michael, and Eve were moving farther from her, leaving her on the far right side. That was good; she had a straight shot to the bookcase from here.

Too easy.

“I warned you,” Myrnin’s voice said, echoing from the corners of the room. “I told you that if you came here, you were mine. Why wouldn’t you listen?”

“Because we can’t,” Claire said. “I’m sorry, but we have to do this. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“That’s sweet. And very unlikely, because I’m going to eat you and your friends, little Claire, just as soon as you tell me what you’ve done with Ada.”

The vicious darkness in his voice took her by surprise, but she should have known it was coming; she should have known that just as Amelie had assumed Sam was being held captive, Myrnin would think the same thing—or worse—about Ada.

He loved her, and he thinks we have her, hurt her, or killed her. Myrnin wasn’t going to help them. He’d do everything he could to stop them.

“We have to move,” Claire whispered to Shane. He nodded.

“Are we playing a game?” Myrnin asked. Well, of course he could hear her. “I like games. This looks like . . . chess.” And he leaped out of the shadows and up on top of one of the granite work-tables toward the back of the lab. “Your move, little pawns. But do try to play well. It’s no fun, otherwise.” He was wearing a black velvet coat that reached down to his ankles, a bright red silk vest, black pants, and high boots, like some escapee from a pirate movie. He crouched down on the table, watching the four of them as they slowly spread out. “So many choices. I think I’ll move . . . this way.” And then he leaped.

For Eve.

She screamed and dived forward, rolled, and he missed her by about a foot where he landed, but he was already turning and grabbing at her, so fast that it was a blur. . . .

And another blur hit him from the side and knocked him into an uncontrolled slide across the floor toward the other side of the room. Michael, who stood there over Eve, fangs down, looking pale and dangerous and angry. “Your move,” he said. “You hurt her, and I’ll take your arm off and feed it to you.”