Black Dawn: The Morganville Vampires Read Online Free PDF Page A

…
Problems
didn’t seem a strong enough word, and
issues
sounded too mundane. There wasn’t really a word for what was going on between her best friends, other than
complicated.
    Claire grabbed coffee to go, wolfed down a couple of cookies—premixed or not, they were hot, melty, and delicious—and followed Shane down another hallway. It might be, she thought, the one Oliver had used, but this place was confusing. If there were signs, they were visible only to vampires. But Shane took a right down an identical hallway, then a left, and then they were in another round room, this one with a massive barred door at one spoke of the wheel. The door also had guards … lots of them.
Amelie’s personal detail,
Claire thought as she recognized some of them. They didn’t look as spotlessly turned out as she was used to seeing. The dark tailored suits were gone, and so were the sunglasses. Instead, they wore clothing from the same archival stores that she and her friends had scavenged … and she supposed that what they’d chosen at least indicated what period in history they were most comfortable with.
    The two guards at the door, for instance. The taller, thinner one with the light hazel eyes and close-cut blond hair … he was wearing a chunky black leather jacket with spikes and buckles, and skinny jeans. Very eighties. His friend with the sharply drawn cheekbones and narrow eyes had on the tightest polyester pants Claire had ever seen, and a square-cut jacket to match, with a tight buttoned shirt in a loud earth-toned pattern.
    “It’s like disco inferno up in here,” Shane muttered, and she smothered a laugh. Not that it mattered; vampires could hear that, and if they wanted to take offense, they would. But the seventies addict just smiled a little, showing the tips of his fangs, and the eighties dude couldn’t be bothered with that much response. There were more guards standing around the walls, still as statues. Most had chosen clothing that wasn’t so … retro, but one waswearing what looked like a gangster suit from the Prohibition era. Claire half expected him to be toting a violin case with a machine gun in it, just like in the movies.
    “No one goes into the armory,” Disco Inferno said. He was apparently the spokesman for the door. “Go back, please.”
    “Order from Oliver,” Claire said. “We’re to find Theo Goldman.”
    “Yesterday,” Shane put in helpfully. “And we’d like to not die. So. Armory it is.”
    “No one goes into the armory,” the vampire repeated, sounding bored now and staring over the top of Shane’s head, which was quite a trick even for a tall guy. “Not without authorization.”
    “Which they have,” said a voice from behind the two of them. Claire turned quickly, which she tended to do now, when vampires talked behind her, and found that Amelie’s pretty blond vampire “sister”—not by family but by vampire blood, although she didn’t exactly get all of that relationship detail—Naomi was standing three feet behind them, having arrived in eerie silence. She smiled and bowed her head, just a little. She was still very formal, used to the manners beaten into her hundreds of years ago, but she at least was trying; it wasn’t a full curtsy or anything, not that such would have been practical with the khaki cargo pants and work shirt she was wearing. “I myself have spoken with Oliver. I am to accompany these two and help them locate Dr. Goldman.”
    That
held some weight. Disco Inferno and his eighties counterpart—Billy Idol?—did some heavy lifting on what looked like solid steel bars, plus a complicated lock, and finally swung the doors open for them. Naomi passed the two of them and looked over her shoulder with that same charming, though slightly awkward smile. “I hope that you do not mind me accompanying you,” she said. She had a bit of an accent, antique and French, and Clairecould see that it had an effect on men in general, even Shane, who was more