Morganville (Justin Bieber)

Chapter 116

We left the museum by way of a side door. It was risky to go out into the night, but since the only other way to exit the museum was to go back into the darkness, nobody argued about the choice.

"Careful," Amelie told us in a very soft voice that hardly reached past the shadows. "I have gathered my forces. My father is doing the same. There will be patrols, especially here."

The flames hadn't reached Founder's Square, which was where we came out--the heart of vamp territory. It didn't look like the calm, orderly place I remembered, though; the lights were all out, and the shops and restaurants that bordered it were closed and empty.

It looked afraid.

The only place I could see movement was on the marble steps of the Elders' Council building, where Bishop's welcome feast had been held. Gerard hissed a warning, and we all froze, silent and still in the dark. Hannah's grip on my arm felt like an iron band.

There were three vampires standing there, scanning the area.

Lookouts.

"Go," Amelie said in a whisper so small it was like a ghost. "Move, but be careful."

We reached the edge of the shadows by the corner of the building, but just as I was starting to relax a little, Amelie, Gerard, and the other vampires moved in a blur, scattering in all directions.

This left me flatfooted for one horrible second, before Hannah tackled me facedown on the grass. I gasped, got a mouthful of crunchy dirt and bitter chlorophyll, and fought to get my breath. Hannah's heavy weight held me down, and the older woman braced her elbows on my back.

She's firing the pistol, I thought, and tried to raise my head to see where Hannah was shooting.

"Head down!" Hannah snarled, and shoved me down with one hand while she continued to fire with the other. From the screams in the dark, she was hitting something. "Get up! Run!"

I wasn't quick enough to suit either the marines or the vampires, and before I knew it, I was being half pulled, half dragged at a dead run through the night. It was all a confusing blur of shadows, dark buildings, pale faces, and the surly orange glow of flames in the distance.

"What is it?" I screamed.

"Patrols." Hannah kept on firing behind us. She wasn't firing wildly, not at all; it seemed like she took a second or two between every shot, choosing her target. Most of the shots seemed to hit, from the shouts and snarls and screams. "Amelie! We need an exit, now!"

Amelie looked back at us, a pale flash of face in the dark, and nodded.

We charged up the steps of another building on Founder's Square. I didn't have time to get more than a vague impression of it--some kind of official building, with columns in front and big stone lions snarling on the stairs-- before our little party came to a halt at the top of the stairs, in front of a closed white door with no knob.

Gerard started to throw himself against it. Amelie stopped him with an outstretched hand. "It will do no good," she said. "It can't be opened by force. Let me."

The other vampire, facing away and down the steps, said, "Don't think we have time for sweet talk, ma'am. What you want us to do?" He had a drawling Texas accent, the first one I had heard from any vampire. I'd never heard him speak at all before.

He winked at me, which was even more of a shock. Until that moment, he hadn't even looked at me like a real person.

"A moment," Amelie murmured.

The Texan nodded behind us. "Don't think we've got one, ma'am."

There were shadows converging in the dark at the foot of the steps--the patrol that Hannah had been shooting at. There were at least twenty of them. In the lead was Ysandre, the beautiful vampire I hated maybe more than I hated any other vampire in the entire world. She was Bishop's girl through and through--Amelie's vampire sister, if they thought in those kinds of terms.