Morganville (Justin Bieber)

Chapter 126

Home was ours again. The refugees were all out now, leaving a house that badly needed picking up and cleaning-- not that anybody had gone out of their way to trash the place, but with that many people coming and going, things happened. I grabbed a trash bag and began clearing away paper plates, old Styrofoam cups half full of stale coffee, crumpled wrappers, and papers. Justin fired up the video game, apparently back in the mood to kill zombies. Michael took his guitar out of its case and tuned it, but he kept getting up to stare out the windows, restless and worried.

"What?" Eve asked. She'd heated up leftover spaghetti out of the refrigerator, and tried to hand Michael a plate first. "Do you see something?"

"Nothing," he said, and gave her a quick, strained smile as he waved away the food. "Not really hungry, though. Sorry."

"More for me," Justin said, and grabbed the plate. He propped it on his lap and forked spaghetti into his mouth. "Seriously. You all right? Because you never turn down food."

Michael didn't answer. He stared out into the dark.

"You're worried," Eve said. "About Sam?"

"Sam and everybody else. This is nuts. What's going on here--" Michael checked the locks on the window, but as a kind of automatic motion, as though his mind wasn't really on it. "Why hasn't Bishop taken over? What's he doing out there? Why aren't we seeing the fight?"

"Maybe Amelie's kicking his ass out there in the shadows somewhere." Justin shoveled in more spaghetti.

"No. She's not. I can feel that. I think--I think she's in hiding. With the rest of her followers, the vampires, anyway."

Justin stopped chewing. "You know where they are?"

"Not really. I just feel--" Michael shook his head. "It's gone. Sorry. But I feel like things are changing. Coming to a head."

I had just taken a plate of warm pasta when we all heard the thump of footsteps overhead. We looked up, and then at each other, in silence. Michael pointed to himself and the stairs, and we all nodded. Eve opened a drawer in the end table and took out three sharpened stakes; she tossed one to Justin, one to me, and kept one in a whiteknuckled grip.

Michael ascended the stairs without a sound, and disappeared.

He didn't come back down. Instead, there was a swirl of black coat and stained white balloon pants tucked into black boots; then Myrnin leaned over the railing to say, "Upstairs, all of you. I need you."

"Um . . ." Eve looked at Justin. Justin looked at me.

I followed Myrnin. "Trust me," I said. "It won't do any good to say no."

Michael was waiting in the hallway, next to the open, secret door. He led the way up.

Whatever I had been expecting to see, it wasn't a crowd, but that was what was waiting upstairs in the hidden room on the third floor. I stared in confusion at the room full of people, then moved out of the way for Justin and Eve to join me and Michael.

Myrnin came last. "Anastasia, I believe you know Theo Goldman and his family."

The faces came into focus. I had met them--in that museum thing, when they'd been on the way to rescue Myrnin. Theo Goldman had spoken to Amelie. He'd said they wouldn't fight.

But it looked to me like they'd been in a fight anyway. Vampires didn't bruise, exactly, but I could see torn clothes and smears of blood, and they all looked exhausted and somehow--hollow. Theo was worst of all. His kind face seemed made of nothing but lines and wrinkles now, as if he'd aged a hundred years in a couple of days.