Morganville (Justin Bieber)

Chapter 19

"Whose little one are you?" Purred the pink girl, and before I could engage my brain to run, the girl had taken my left hand, examining my bare wrist. Then my right. "Oh my, you really are lost, sweetie. John, what should we do?"

"Well" John said, and put a friendly hand on my shoulder. It felt colder than my liquid nitrogen. "We could sit down and have a nice cup of coffee. Tell you all about what we do in here. That's what you want to know, right? Children like you are so darn curious" he was steering my forward, and I knew that any attempt to pull free would end in pain.

Pink girl was still holding onto my wrist too, her cool fingers were pressed against my pulse point. I needed to get out of this. And fast.

"I know what you do here" I said. "You're looking for the book. But I thought vampires couldn't read it" I said smartly.

John stopped and looked at his companion, who raised her eyebrows back at him. "Angela?" He asked her.

"We can't" she said. "We're just here as...observers. And you seem very knowledgable, for a free range child. Under eighteen, aren't you? Shouldn't you be under someone's protection?"

"I'm a student" I said. "Advanced placement"

"Ah" Angela said, and looks kind of regretful. "Well, then, I guess you're on your own. Too bad really"

"Because you're going to kill me?" I heard myself say, and remembered what Eve had said. Don't look in their eyes. Too late. Angela's were soft turquoise, very pretty. I felt a deliciously warm edge of sleep sensation wash over me.

"Probably" Angela admitted. "But first you should have some tea"

"Coffee" John said. "I still like the caffeine"

"It spoils the taste!" Angela argues.

"Gives it that zip" John smacked his lips.

"Why don't you let me look through the boxes?" I asked, desperately bringing myself back from the edge of whatever that was. "You've got to let humans do it, right? If you can't read the book?"

"What makes you think you could read it, little one?" Angela asked. She had a buttery sort of accent. "Are you a scholar of languages as well?"

"N-no, but I know what the symbol is that you're looking for. I can recognise it" I say. Angela reached down and drew her finger nails over the skin of my inner arm.

"No, I don't have the tattoo, but I've seen it" I say. I was absolutely shaking all over, terrified in a distant sort of way, but my brain was racing, looking for an escape. "I can recognise it. You can't, can you? You cant even draw it"

Angela's fingernails dug in just a bit, in warning. "Don't be smart little girl. We're not the kind of people you should mock"

"I'm not mocking. You can't see it. That's why you haven't found it. It's not just that you can't read it, right?" I say.

Angela and John exchanged looks, again, silent and meaningful. I swallowed, hard and tried to think of anything that might be a good argument to keep me unbitten. The vampires turned a corner of boxes, and there, in an open space, was a door that didn't lead out onto any stairwell I'd seen, an elevator with a down button.

"Professor Wilson?" I blurted. He looked up, blinking behind his glasses. He was my classics of English literature professor.

"Ah. You're-" he snapped his fingers two or three times. "In my into to Shakespeare-"

"Classics of English lit" I say.

"Right, exactly. They change the title occasionally, just to fool the students into taking it again. Neuberg isn't it?" He says. Fright in his eyes. "You weren't signed here to help me were you?"