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him just now. Amelie wouldn't, couldn't stop him. But she had to say it. She had to try.

"You said you had to kill a vampire last night," she said. "Not the one from the diner?"

"No," Oliver said. He didn't look up at her. "An old friend. I couldn't stop her any other way."

"Did she say anything?"

"What?" Oliver looked up, frowning. "No. She was beyond speaking anything like sense."

"But she did speak."

"Only to scream that nothing was right."

That confirmed it, and Claire felt a cold, heavy sense of guilt. "People are forgetting who they are. Or where. Or else they know something's wrong, but they can't tell what it is, and it's driving them crazy."

"Then it's obviously not confined to humans," Oliver said. "Blood analysis on the affected vampires shows nothing. It's not the same as the illness we were enduring before." So he did know. And he'd even done something about it, or tried.

"Then it's got to be the machine, the one Myrnin and I fixed. It started about the time we turned it on." He raised his head and met her eyes, and her mouth, if possible, went even dryer. "Myrnin doesn't think there's anything wrong with it. I . . . I wish that was true, but I think he's in denial. I think the machine is doing this to us, and it's getting worse the longer it's on."

Oliver was silent for a moment, then said, "And if we turn it off?"

"Then the barriers go down. But I think the memory problems stop, too."

"You're certain of this."

Was she? Because she knew she was staking her life on it. "Yes."

Oliver growled, low in his throat, and said, "Then turn the damned thing off and fix it. Find what's wrong. We can't do without the barriers for long; our human residents are already defying authority, and once they realize the barriers don't function, we will lose control entirely, and this will become a true bloodbath. Do you understand?"

"Yes. I'll turn it off. We'll fix it."

"Then you'd best get to it. Now get out."

Claire scrambled out from behind the table and grabbed her backpack. She hesitated over the knife and stake, but scooped them up and stuffed them in before throwing it over her shoulder and running for the door. She looked back once; Oliver didn't seem to have noticed she'd left. He was still holding Amelie in his arms, and for the first time she saw real, raw emotion on his face.

Grief.

Dr. Theo Goldman stepped off the elevator carrying his doctor's bag. He blinked at Claire as they maneuvered around each other, him coming out, her going in, and said, "I was told I had a patient. This is an odd place to find one."

"It's Amelie," Claire said. "That way. Theo?"

He looked back, but kept walking.

"Please help her."

He nodded, smiled reassuringly, and the doors closed on her before she could say anything else.

Chapter Ten

TEN

Myrnin wasn't at the lab when she arrived. That was unusual; she thought that maybe he might be sleeping, but when she checked his room at the back, it was neat and empty. He was just . . . out.

Well, that made things easier.

Claire called home and got Michael and Shane. "I need you to come help me," she said. "And I need a ladder."

"Tell me you did not volunteer us to paint somebody's house," Shane said. "That would be a lot like work. I'm already doing work way too much."

Michael, however, got it immediately. "You need to get through the trapdoor at the lab. Myrnin's not there?"

"No," Claire said. "Can you help?" "Sure. Open up the portal and we'll come straight through."

Claire hung up and rolled back the bookcase that blocked the portal--no easy job, because Myrnin hadn't balanced it for humans, although he'd at least removed the lead, which was nice-- and unlocked the door from a set of keys she found in the mouth of one of Myrnin's discarded vampire-bunny slippers. She swung it open, concentrating on the Glass House, and the image flickered, wavered, and clarified into reality on the other side of the door.

Shane and Michael were carrying an extendable metal ladder. Claire reached through and gave Shane her hand, and he stepped over, pulling Michael after him along with the ladder.

"Wow," Shane said, and shivered. "That's not weird at all."

"You've done it before," Claire pointed out. "When I first fixed the portal."

"Didn't really think about it that time. Never gets any less strange, though. Okay, where to?"

"Here." She'd already unlocked