Morganville (Justin Bieber)

Chapter 122

Outside, things were odd--quiet, but with a suppressed feeling of excitement in the air. People were still outside, talking in groups on the streets. The stores were shut down, for the most part, but I noticed with a stir of unease that the bars were open, and so was Morganville's gun shop.

Not good.

The gates of the university had opened, and they were issuing some kind of passes to people to leave--still sticking to the emergency drill story, I assumed.

"Oh, man," Justin muttered, as we turned down one of the streets that led to the heart of town, and Founder's Square--Vamptown. There were more people here, more groups. "I don't like this. There's Sal Manetti up there. He was one of my dad's drinking buddies, back in the day."

"The cops don't like it much, either," Hannah said, and pointed at the police cars ahead. They were blocking off access at the end of the street, and when I squinted, I could see they were out of their cruisers and arranged in a line, ready for anything. "This could turn bad, any time. All they need is somebody to strike a match out there, and we're all on fire."

I thought about Justin saying his father was coming to town, and I knew he was thinking about that, too. He shook his head. "We've got to figure out where Eve might be. Ideas?"

"Maybe she left us some clues," I said. "Back at Common Grounds. We should probably start there."

Common Grounds, however, was deserted, and the steel shutters were down. The front door was locked. We drove around back, to the alley. Nothing was there but trash cans, and--

"What the hell is that?" Justin asked. He hit the brakes and put the car in park, then jumped out and picked up something small on the ground. He got back in and showed it to me.

It was a small white candy in the shape of a skull. I blinked at it, then looked down the alley. "She left a trail of breath mints?"

"Looks like. We'll have to go on foot to follow it."

Hannah didn't seem to like that idea much, but Justin wasn't taking votes. We parked and locked Eve's car in the alley behind Common Grounds and began hunting for skull candies.

"Over here!" Hannah yelled, at the end of the alley. "Looks like she's dropping them when she makes a turn. Smart. She went this way."

After that, we went faster. The skull candies were in plain sight, easy to spot. I noticed that they were mostly in the shadows, which would have made sense, if Eve was with Myrnin or the other vampires. Why didn't she stay? Maybe she hadn't had a choice.

We ran out of candy trail after a few blocks. It led us into an area where I hadn't really been before-- abandoned old buildings, mostly, falling to pieces under the relentless pressure of years and sun. It looked and felt deserted.

"Where now?" I asked, looking around. I didn't see anything obvious, but then I spotted something shiny, tucked in behind a tipped over rusty trash can. I reached behind and came up with a black leather collar, studded with silver spikes.

The same collar Eve had been wearing. I wordlessly showed it to Justin, who turned in a slow circle, looking at the blank buildings. "Come on, Eve," he said. "Give us something. Anything." He froze. "You hear that?"

Hannah cocked her head. She was standing at the end of the alley, shotgun held in her arms in a way that was both casual and scarily competent. "What?"

"You don't hear it?"

I did. Somebody's phone was ringing. A cell phone, with an ultrasonic ringtone--I'd heard that older people couldn't hear those frequencies, and kids in school had used them all the time to sneak phone calls and texts in class. It was faint, but it was definitely there. "I thought the networks were down," I said, and pulled my own phone out.