Morganville (Justin Bieber)

Chapter 121

"Oliver, too."

"Oliver, Myrnin, all of them. Whatever bat signal was calling them got turned up to eleven, I think."

"Then where's Eve?" I asked.

Hannah shook her head. "We don't know anything. It's all guesswork. Let's get some boots on the ground and figure this thing out." She continued to stare outside. "If they went out there, most of them could make it for a while in the sun, but they'd be hurt. Some couldn't make it far at all."

Some, like the policeman I had seen burn up in front of me, would already be gone. "You think it's Mr. Bishop?" I asked, in a very small voice.

"I hope so."

I blinked. "Why?"

"Because if it's not, that's got to be a whole lot worse."

Three hours later, we didn't know much more, except that nothing we tried to do to keep the vampires from leaving seemed to work, apart from tranquilizing them and locking them up in sturdy cells. Tracking those who did leave wasn't much good, either. Me and Hannah ended up at the Glass House, which seemed like the best place to gather--central to most things, and close to City Hall in an emergency.

Richard Morrell arrived, along with a few others, and set up shop in the kitchen. I was trying to figure out what to do to feed everybody, when there was another knock at the door.

It was Gramma Day. The old woman, straightbacked and proud, leaned on her cane and stared at me from age faded eyes. "I ain't staying with my daughter," she said. "I don't want any part of that."

I quickly moved aside to let her in, and the old lady shuffled inside. As I locked the door behind her, I asked, "How did you get here?"

"Walked," Gramma said. "I know how to use my feet just fine. Nobody bothered me." Nobody would dare, I thought. "Young Mr. Richard! Are you in here?"

"Ma'am?" Richard Morrell came out of the kitchen, looking very much younger than I had ever seen him. Gramma Day had that effect on people. "What are you doing here?"

"My fool daughter's off her head," Gramma said. "I'm not having any of it. Move out of the way, boy. I'm making you some lunch." And she tapped her cane right past him, into the kitchen, and clucked and fretted over the state of the kitchen while I stood by, caught between giggles and horror. I was just a pair of hands, getting ordered around, but at the end of it there was a plate full of sandwiches and a big jug of iced tea, and everybody was seated around the kitchen table, except for Gramma, who'd gone off into the other room to rest. I had hesitantly taken a chair, at Richard's nod. Detectives Joe Hess and Travis Lowe were also present, and they were gratefully scarfing down food and drink. I felt exhausted, but they looked a whole lot worse. Tall, thin Joe Hess had his left arm in a sling--broken, apparently, from the brace on it--and both he and his rounder, heavier partner had cuts and bruises to prove they'd been in a fight or two.

"So," Hess said, "any word on where the vampires are heading when they take off?"

"Not so far," Richard said. "Once we started tracking them, we could keep up only for a while, and then they lost us."

"Aren't they hurt by the sun?" I asked. "I mean--"

"They start smoking, not in the Marlboro way, and then they start crisping," Travis Lowe said around a mouthful of turkey and Swiss. "The older ones, they can handle it okay, and anyway, they're not just charging out there anymore. They're putting on hats and coats and blankets. I saw one wrapped up in a SpongeBob rug from some kid's bedroom, if you can believe that. It's the younger vamps that are in trouble. Some of them won't make it to the shade if they're not careful."