Come on, Michael, she thought, and stretched out her hand to pass it through his body, again and again. Come on, you know I'm here; you have to know! This was you once!
As if she'd heard Claire's thoughts, Eve said, "You don't think - what Myrnin said, you don't think that the house could have, you know, saved her? Like it saved you?"
Michael didn't look up. "I'm a Glass," he said. "She's not. I don't think it could do that for her, but even if it could, do you feel anything? Any sign that she's really still here?"
"Like what?"
"Cold spots," he said. "We'd feel cold spots where she was standing. And you know Claire; she wouldn't be just standing around. She'd be in our faces, telling us she's here."
He was right. Claire was, in fact, jumping in and out of his body, screaming at the top of her lungs, all through that speech. Michael didn't feel it.
Not at all.
"Maybe she's just not, you know, as strong as you were," Eve said. "But if she's really still here - "
He stretched out his hand across the table and took hers. He squeezed. "Sweetheart, she's gone. I'm sorry."
Eve sucked in a deep, uncontrolled breath in a gasp, and said miserably, "But I was here. I was upstairs, getting towels. I used the bathroom and I dried my hair and I - Michael, I was here when it happened!" She grabbed her mug and took a gulping drink; liquid slopped over messily on the table as she set it down. "This can't be how it ends. I can't deal. I really can't."
Michael looked up at her and said softly, "If you can't, how do you think Shane feels?"
Eve shook her head. Her eyes were full of tears, again. "What are we going to do?"
"I don't know." He stared at her for a second, then seemed to come to a decision. "Eve, Amelie told me to report to Founder's Square tomorrow night, and to bring you all with me. It was an order, not a request."
"But - "
"The vampires are going to leave," he said. "All of them. She's handing over control of Morganville to the humans."
"Wait - what?" Eve wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "What are you talking about? She can't - The vampires can't just leave. That's insane!"
"I'm telling you what she said. The vampires are leaving, and they're not coming back."
"Why?"
He shook his head. "I don't know, but whatever it is, it's worse than Bishop, and that's - about as bad as it gets."
Eve finally connected the dots. "And - if the vampires are leaving - what about you?"
He waited for a breath, then shook his head. "They won't let me take you with us," he said. "So I'm staying."
"But you'll be alone if you stay - I mean, all of them are going?"
"All but me. That means no blood bank, no help, and nothing but a town full of pissed-off humans. I'll be the one vampire left they can take it out on." Michael tried to smile. "But I'm not leaving you, Eve. Whatever happens. Especially not after - I can't lose you."
She slid out of her chair and into his lap, and he cradled her close, and it was really sweet and sad and private, and Claire felt like a voyeur, suddenly.
She drifted away. Looking at her own body was horrifying; it seemed only more and more empty while the minutes passed and the cops took more pictures. They were getting ready to take her out, she saw; there were paramedics waiting with a stretcher. Good, she thought. Maybe once the body's gone, I can make them feel that I'm here.
"You can't," a voice said. It was a faint voice, soft and featureless, and it seemed to come out of the air around her. Claire looked around the room. The police detective was there, and the bored and waiting paramedics. Her own corpse. Nobody else. "You can't make them feel you. You're too weak, and however fond of you it may be, the house is not connected to you by blood."
"And who are you?" Claire asked.
She saw a ripple out of the corner of her eye, like heat off a summer pavement, and turned that direction as a body formed out of thin air.
He was a nondescript little man, only a bit taller than she was, with thinning light-colored hair and a round face. He was wearing an old-fashioned vest and a high-collared white shirt, just like out of old Western movies. Some kind of banker or something.
"I'm Hiram Glass," he said. "And this is my house."
"Your house."
He shrugged and crossed his arms. "Well, my bones are buried in the foundation, and my blood was mixed with the mortar. Yes, my house. And the house of my family. You were never meant to be here. It's Claire, isn't it?"
"I . . . Yes." She was still unable to process the whole idea that there was a dead man in the basement. "What do you mean, I'm too weak?"
He smiled faintly. "You've got grit, but you're not a Glass. Michael brought you in, and that makes you part of the family, but not of the blood. The house likes you, and it tried to save you, but it can only do so much. It won't be like Michael. He had a chance at life, even after death, because he could draw on his connection with me. You don't have one."
"He never said anything about you," Claire said. She would have remembered that, if Michael had actually mentioned an ancestral ghost showing up during his off-hours.
"Well, he couldn't." The ghost shrugged. "Seeing as how I never spoke to him. There was no need. He was getting along just fine. Not like you, screaming and waking the dead, if you'll pardon the expression. Now, you just settle. You won't be able to get their attention, only mine, and I assure you, you don't want more of mine. You're an intruder here."
There was a slight dark edge to that last part. The edges of his image rippled, and Claire realized he was about to leave. "Wait!" She drifted closer to him. "Wait, please - what about at night? Michael said he was weaker in the day, stronger at night. Strong enough to actually have a real body. Can I - "
He was shaking his head now. "See that flesh and bone over there?" He pointed at her body, which was being lifted and put onto the stretcher. Claire had tried not to notice that. She felt a little sick, at least mentally - she couldn't be nauseated without having a stomach. "You're not a Glass. The house might have saved you, but that's all it can do, without my cooperation. You have no way to manifest yourself, night or day. This is what you have, or will ever have. Be grateful I allow you to stay. Quietly."
And even though she yelled at him to wait, again, Hiram Glass shivered like vibrating glass, and vanished in a grayscale ripple.
I'm trapped, Claire realized with dawning horror. Trapped alone. Just . . . observing.
A real, genuine ghost.
She couldn't imagine how it could get any worse, really.
Chapter Thirteen
CLAIRE
By the time the sun started to set, all the strangers were gone from the house. It was Michael, Shane, and Eve, and Claire, who hovered silently nearby - unseen and eternally separated.
Better if I'd died, she thought miserably. She'd never felt more alone. More completely useless.
"We have to call," Shane finally said in a voice as colorless and gray as Claire felt. She turned to see him holding his cell phone in both hands as he stared at the screen. "We have to tell her parents."
He didn't dial, not immediately. He just sat there as if he couldn't remember how to work the phone.
"Maybe Hannah's calling them," Eve said. "Maybe we should let her handle it - I mean, the police, they know how - "
"It's my responsibility." That was Michael, who stood up and took the phone out of Shane's hands. "I'm the one who let her stay here. I'm the one who told them I'd keep her safe." He sounded hoarse, but steady, and before Shane could object, he brought up the address book and hit a key. Shane slumped. Claire couldn't tell if he felt relieved, or just defeated.
But Michael frowned, checked the phone, and dialed again. Then a third time. "It's not going through," he said. "I'm getting a circuits-busy message. Hang on. I'm going to call Oliver." He did, then hung up. "Circuits busy."
Eve stood and picked up the house's old landline phone, big and clunky, hardwired into the wall. Claire could hear the discordant tones from where she drifted a few feet away. "This one's out, too," Eve said. "What's going on?"
"Check the Internet," Michael said, and Eve went upstairs. She was gone only a moment before she came down again.