Ghost Town

Myrnin stood there for a moment, head cocked to one side, staring at the two of them. “I have the oddest feeling,” he said, “that I’ve seen this before. Seen you before.”

“You have,” Claire said, and cleared her throat, trying to ignore the ache. “Myrnin, you know us. Stop. Just stop and think, okay?”

He stared at her, and she saw that he was trying—groping for the lost threads of his life. She saw how it frightened him to feel this way, too. Maybe he’d enjoyed it, on some level; maybe it had felt like freedom, not worrying about anyone but himself and Ada.

But that wasn’t him. Not anymore. It hadn’t been for years.

“Claire,” he said, and took a step forward. “Claire, I think . . . I think I . . . forgot something . . . about—I don’t think this is right. I don’t think any of this is right. And I think I know . . . I think I know Ada—”

He stopped and turned to look at the portal an instant before Claire felt the flash of power from it. “No!” he snapped, and stretched out a hand toward the doorway, which was starting to spark and flicker with color. “No one else comes in!”

She couldn’t let him stop this, no matter what happened, but she felt sick about it. She’d been close, so close to breaking through . . . and now it was gone again.

Claire scooped up the fallen stake and lunged for his back.

She didn’t make it, of course; Myrnin was too fast, and too alert. He whirled, grabbed her arm, and held the point of the stake an inch from his chest, staring right into her eyes.

“Oh, child,” he said. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

But she’d done exactly what she’d meant to do, and in the next second, power rushed through the room, crackling along her skin, and Amelie stepped through the portal behind Myrnin, shining like a white diamond in the dim light. Behind her came two more vampire guards, and Oliver. But Oliver wasn’t going to be any help, because he was wearing silver chains on his wrists and ankles.

He could hardly stand, Claire realized. He looked terrible.

Myrnin forced Claire to drop the stake, and held on to her wrist as he turned to face Amelie, bowing low from the waist. “Founder.”

“Myrnin,” Amelie said, as the portal dissolved into black behind her party. “I seem to have interrupted. I recognize the girl you have in hand, and West, of course.” West, looking very unhappy, loosened the bow and removed the arrow from the string, bowing to Amelie. With a glance at Frank, she walked over to stand with the new arrivals, signaling a change in her allegiance. Amelie fixed her attention on Frank, and then Michael, who was still on the ground. Eve was kneeling next to him, trying to help him get up. “This doesn’t seem to be going well for you, Mr. Collins,” she said. “I suggest you take these children and withdraw while you have the chance.”

“No,” Michael said raggedly, and staggered to his feet.

And Shane said, “We’re not going without Claire.”

“I assure you, boys, you will be going, one way or another,” Amelie said. “Myrnin. Give the girl to me, and I will deal with this intrusion.”

“But—”

“Do you doubt that I will act in the best interests of Morganville?” she asked, holding his gaze. “Have you ever doubted that, in all our years together?”

“But they have Ada,” he said, and his voice was small and lost and plaintive. “You have to make them give her back. Please.”

“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.