Morganville (Justin Bieber)

Chapter 102

"You tried to turn Michael."

Oh, I shouldn't have said that, I really shouldn't have; Oliver's face tensed, and I saw the skull underneath that smooth, pale skin. A flicker of red went through his eyes. "So Michael says."

"So Amelie says. You wanted - you wanted your own power base here. Your own converts. But you couldn't do it. That surprised you, didn't it? Because all of a sudden you're - not able to."

"Child," Oliver said, "you should think carefully about the next thing you say to me. Very, very carefully."

He followed up with another stretch of silent staring, and this time I did look away. I picked at invisible lint on my backpack. "I should get to work," I said. "And you aren't supposed to be in here without Amelie knowing about it."

"How do you know she doesn't?"

"There'd be somebody else here watching you if she did," I pointed out, and got a small, cold smile in response.

"Clever girl. Yes, very well. Are you going to tell me to leave?"

"I don't think I can tell you to do anything, Oliver, but if you want me to call Amelie - " I took my cell phone out, opened it, and scrolled through the address book.

Oliver thought about killing me. I saw it flash across his face, plain as sunrise, and I almost dialed the phone in sheer reflex.

Then it was gone, and he was smiling, and he stood up and gave me a nod. "No need to bother the Founder with such nonsense," he said. "I'll be leaving. There's only so many ridiculous mad ravings one can read at a sitting, in any case."

He dropped the journal onto a pile scattered near the chair and walked away, moving with effortless grace around the piles of books and barriers of mismatched furniture. He didn't seem to move quickly, but before I could blink, he was gone, a shadow on the steps.

I let out a shaky breath, got the dart gun from my backpack, and went to see Myrnin.

"Magnificent," Myrnin said, staring down at his hands. He flexed them into fists, turned them over, extended his fingers. "I haven't felt this good in - well, years. I had numbness in my hands - did you know?"

It was a symptom Myrnin had forgotten to mention, and I wrote it down in my notebook. I had the countdown clock - a new addition to the lab, one I'd ordered from the Internet - up on the wall, and the red flickering numbers reminded both of us that Myrnin had a maximum of five hours of sanity from the current formulation of the treatment.

Myrnin followed my glance at the clock, and the giddy excitement in his expression faded. He still looked like a young man, except for his eyes; it was creepy to think he'd looked exactly that way for generations before I was born, and would long after I was dead and gone. He did so love the hunt, Oliver had said. There was really only one kind of hunt for vampires. Hunting people.

He smiled at me, and it was the smile that had won me over in the first place - sweet, gentle, inviting me to share in some delightful secret. "Thank you for the clock, Ana. That's a great help. There's an alarm feature?"

"It starts sounding a tone fifteen minutes before the clock runs out," I said. "And it has tones striking every hour, too."

"Very helpful. Well, then. Now that I have use of my fingers - what shall we do?" Myrnin wiggled his thick black eyebrows suggestively, which was actually funny, coming from him. Not that he wasn't cute - he was - but I couldn't really imagine finding him sexy.

I wondered if that would hurt his feelings.

"How about if we start shelving some of these books?" I said. It really was getting to be a hazard; I'd tripped over stacks more than once even when it wasn't an emergency. Myrnin, however, made a face.