Rachel Caine: Ghost Town

He was saving their lives.

She plunged on. They were on the path now, and even though she was coughing helplessly, even though it felt like strength was bleeding out of her with every step, she knew where she was going. She felt a wave of coolness against her face, and suddenly her coughing lessened. She dragged in a choking breath, and then another one, and tasted beautiful, delicious, sweet air.

She’d passed the quartz outcropping, and was in the narrow tunnel that led to the black emptiness of another portal.

Claire made it there, staggering but still upright, and the others joined her. Oliver had dropped her hand as soon as he could, but Shane took it, and that was good. She squeezed tightly, and he gave her a thumbs-up as he coughed again and wiped blood from his mouth. His eyes were bloodshot, too. Everyone seemed to be okay, even Michael.

Claire kept breathing in deep, cleansing gasps, and focused on the portal. This part would be tricky if Myrnin had remembered to lock it, but she didn’t think he would have. This hadn’t been used in so long, according to him, that he’d actually forgotten it existed—at least he had, until Ada had trapped them both in the cavern.

If he’d forgotten all that, he’d have forgotten this secret portal, too.

She hoped.

The frequencies tuned in her head, and she saw a wash of shimmer across the black, then a glow, then pinpoints of light. An eerie wash of color, somewhere between gray and blue. It finally resolved into shadows, and overhead lights, and the weird, sprawling, organic shape of the computer that lay under Myrnin’s lab.

“Quietly,” Oliver said, and squeezed her shoulder in warning. She nodded. “Let us go first.”

She stood back, holding the portal open, as Oliver stepped through, and then Frank. Shane, Eve, and Michael all looked at her, and she nodded.

“You guys go on,” Shane said. “I’ll go with her.”

Michael took Eve’s hand in his and stepped through the portal.

“You don’t have to do this,” Shane said. “You could just let us handle it.”

“Us? Who’s us?”

He jerked his chin at the vampires and Eve. “You know. The rest of us. This is going to be dangerous.”

“Not going to happen,” Claire said. “I might be able to get him to stop.”

“Who, crazy dude? Maybe. Or he might pull your head off,” Shane said. “I kind of worry.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah?”

“A little bit.”

“That’s . . . nice.”

He studied her, and returned the smile. “Yeah,” he said. “Kind of is, actually. So. I’m going, then.”

“Me, too.”

Shane held out his hand, and she took it, and they went in together.

On the other side of the portal, there was no sign of Myrnin at all. The machine hummed and clanked and hissed, steam whispering from valves at all angles. He’s here , Claire thought. Somewhere. Oliver and Frank were moving silently through the shadows, hunting for him. Eve, Michael, and Shane were sensibly staying put where they were.

The switch on the wall was the master control for the power. Claire pulled free of Shane’s grip, and they had a mime-style argument, him shaking his head, her holding her finger to her lips, him mouthing words she was pretty sure would have gotten him expelled if he’d actually been fifteen. Or at least put in detention. She made a definite “stay here” motion, and moved toward the power switch.

When she was still about two feet away, she felt the prickling warning around the metal. Myrnin had wired it, somehow, and there was live current running through it. If she—or any of them—touched it, they’d roast.

She studied the problem for a few seconds, then turned and went back to her friends. She grabbed Eve by the arm, bent close, and whispered, “I need your boots.”

“What? ” Eve tried to keep her voice soft, but it came out a little too startled. “My what ?”

“Boots,” Claire hissed. “Now. Hurry.”

Eve gave her a wide-eyed, doubtful look, shook her head in a way that indicated she thought Claire had gone completely mental, and bent over to unlace her heavy, clunky, thick-soled boots. She slid one off, then the other, and stood there on the cold stone floor in red and black striped socks. She held the boots out to Claire.

Claire stuck her hands inside the boots like they were giant, awkward gloves. They were warm and a little damp from Eve’s feet. Under normal circumstances that would have been gross, but Claire was kind of over that now.

She went back to the switch, took a deep breath, and clapped the rubber (or plastic) soles of Eve’s boots onto the red-painted lever. She closed her eyes when she did it, half expecting to get zapped into oblivion, but instead, nothing happened. She could still feel the power, but the boots were insulating her, as were her own rubber-soled shoes.

Claire yanked down on the switch, using all of her strength, and for a second it seemed it wouldn’t give—but then it did, snapping to the off position with a sudden, shocking clank of metal.

And it didn’t matter. Nothing happened.

The machine kept running.

Claire stripped the boots off her hands and tossed them to Eve, who quickly bent over to put them on her feet, unfastened.

“I knew someone like you would come,” Myrnin said, and Claire thought he was somewhere behind the machine, hard to see, harder to reach. “Someone who wanted to destroy everything. Someone who wanted to bring down Morganville. I’ve been working for days to be sure you wouldn’t succeed. Save yourselves. Leave now.”

“Myrnin, there’s nothing here to save! It’s just a machine , and it’s broken! Ada’s gone!”

He hissed, and there was fury in his voice when he said, “Don’t you say that. Don’t you ever say that.”

There was a choked cry, and a sudden, violent flurry of motion in the dark where Myrnin was hiding.

Oliver staggered backward and fell into a pool of light. His face was twisted, and there was a silver stake buried deep in his chest. He went limp and stayed that way.

Claire rushed forward, but before she could get to him, Myrnin stepped out of the dark and grabbed her. She hadn’t seen him coming, and couldn’t twist out of the way in time. He had her in a split second, dragging her away from Oliver and off into the shadows with his hand over her mouth.

“No!” Shane yelled, and ran forward to yank the stake out of Oliver’s chest. Oliver convulsed and rolled over on his side, but Shane hardly even paused.

He came after Myrnin and Claire with the weapon.

Frank Collins grabbed his son from behind and slung him out of the way just as Shane hit a trip wire, almost invisible in the dim light.

All Claire could see from her perspective was a brilliant flash of light, which was followed almost immediately by an incredible, numbing roar of sound. She felt stinging cuts open up on her body, even as Myrnin shoved her down to the floor and fell atop her, and a choking wave of dust washed over her. She twisted free of Myrnin, who was lying dazed, and tried to scramble to her feet.

In front of the machine, a huge metal column had tipped over and pinned Frank Collins in a pile of rubble. Shane was lying a few feet away, covered in pale dust but still alive and breathing; as Claire pulled herself up, she saw Michael get to him and check his pulse. He gave her a thumbs-up gesture, then moved to where Frank was pinned. He tried to lift the metal column, but it was too heavy even for his vampire strength.

And Frank didn’t look good. There was a steady, thick stream of blood running from his chest to pool on the floor around him.

“Help me!” Michael yelled, and Oliver managed to crawl over and put his shoulder to the pylon as well. “Push!”