Ghost Town Page 0,56

did very well; I certainly don't want you to think that I am one of those people who has to be in control all the--Oh, well, I suppose that's actually true--I do have to be in control all the time. But only because I am in charge, of course." His manic chatter wasn't fooling her; there was a strange look in his eyes, and something was off about his behavior, too. "It's all fine, Claire. You should just leave it to me."

She swallowed a mouthful of dread. "Can I take a look? Not that I don't trust you. Only because I'm really worried about my friends."

"Aren't I your friend?" he asked, very softly. There was a cold light in his eyes, something that seemed so alien to her, it was like seeing him possessed. "Friends trust each other. There's nothing wrong with the machine. In fact, for the first time in years, I actually feel . . . rested. I feel better."

But five minutes ago he'd said he was tired. This was scaring her. "Myrnin, you are my friend, but there's something not right about this. Please. Let me see it."

He debated it for a moment, and then nodded. The cold light was gone from his eyes when he blinked, and his body language shifted back, subtly, to the Myrnin she knew. "Of course you can. I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. Well, I moved it downstairs and installed it below," he said. "I'll show it to you just this once. I put in safety protocols to protect it against any unauthorized tampering, so be warned. I don't want you down there alone, all right?"

"All right," she said. The "safety protocols" were, no doubt, something that would eat her or burn her face off. She wasn't eager to go poking around downstairs. "I just won't feel good about it until I check for myself."

He tapped his pen on his lips. "I heard your father is unwell."

"He's in the hospital. They . . . they were moving him and my mom today to Dallas, to a heart hospital."

"And yet you're here, talking to me about all these vague suspicions," he said. "I would have thought that you'd be at his side, still."

She felt terrible the instant he said it; she'd been feeling guilty about it all morning, but her dad had texted her at four a.m. and said, No need to come, they're already getting me ready. Love you, sweetheart. And she'd texted him back first thing when she woke up, but the ambulance had already left.

"He's already gone," she said. "And I want to make sure this thing didn't make him sick in the first place." That was a little more of an attack than she'd planned, but she did mean it.

He stood there watching her in silence, and then bowed his head. "Perhaps I deserved that," he said. "I haven't been myself; I know that. But I know the machine is working correctly. I can feel it. Can't you?"

"I can't feel anything," Claire said. "I wish I could."

He led the way to the trapdoor in the back of the lab, and she stood back while he entered the code and pressed his hand to the plate. The hatch popped open with a hiss of escaping cool air.

"Right, down you go," Myrnin said, and, without any warning at all, grabbed hold of her, wrapped his arms around her, and jumped into the dark.

It wasn't a long fall, but it was way longer than she'd ever like to jump by herself. Myrnin landed with hardly a jolt. For a second, he held on to her, which made her feel . . . weird, in a lot of wrong ways. And then all of a sudden he let go and was across the room, turning on overhead lights with the flip of a switch. "I really ought to install one of those marvelous things. You know, the ones that turn the lights on when you clap?"

"You could get motion sensors."

"Where would the fun be in that? This way. Stay close. There are a few new things lying around that it wouldn't be good for you to, ah, encounter."

Right. Myrnin was the master of understatement, because from what Claire had seen of his downstairs playhouse, it was full of things that no sane person would want to run into. And now there were new things.

Claire stayed so close she might as well have been grafted to him. He seemed back