You Suck (21 page)

I
t was a lot like trying to get your courage up to ask a girl to dance, except that in this case it wasn’t so much the fear of rejection, or that you’d be awkward and embarrass yourself, although that was a consideration, but that whoever you picked was going to be reduced to dust, which was somewhat more significant than trampling her toes.

Tommy stood on Castro Street looking for his next victim. His
first
victim, really. He was tired of being the apprentice. If Jody was going to just leave him in the basement because he wasn’t vampire enough for her, then maybe he’d have to become like her. Maybe he’d learn about this predator nature she talked about. Maybe, like that guy in the basement in
The Phantom of the Opera,
he would have to hear “The Music of the Night.” He wasn’t sure what had happened to the basement guy. He’d gone to see the movie with a girl from his high school, but had to leave halfway
through to keep from taking his own life. It hadn’t been a good date.

There were plenty of people out on the street, even at this hour, but none of them screamed victim. There were no women in low-cut dresses who had just turned an ankle. There were no girls in negligees running down the street, glancing back over their shoulders. There were, in fact, not many girls at all. Lots of guys. Lots.

He reckoned that it wasn’t really necessary that he pick a woman. After all, he’d fed off of William and Chet, both of whom were male, but this was different. This was really becoming the hunter, and despite his hunger, there was no little bit of revenge in his decision to bite someone. So it had to be a girl. He had to get back at Jody for ditching him at Jared’s. He had to show her that she wasn’t the only vein in the circulatory system. Or what ever.

The few women he saw were so healthy, with big bright pink life auras around them, and weren’t alone either. He had to get someone alone.

Frustrated, he backed down the alley and started pacing back and forth. After a short time he took a run at the wall, ran up ten feet or so, then turned and ran back across the alley and up the other wall about ten feet, then back, and up the wall fifteen feet—like a skateboarder working a half-pipe, he ran back and forth, feeling the strength and speed of what he was—feeling his confidence rise.

I am a superior being,
he thought.
I am a friggin’ god!

Then his foot went through a window and he sank up
to his crotch into the building, then dangled over the alley upside down, three stories up, flailing.

Stupid place for a window,
he thought. Then he saw her.

She was sort of tall, but dressed in a red evening gown, with athletic curves, and long red hair that had been lacquered into ringlets. She was perfect, and she was coming down the alley. It was like he’d ordered her from an old Hammer film to be the hapless victim. Sweet!

So he was hanging upside down by one leg. That could be a tactic. He felt his fangs extending and he drooled a little, which hit her on the shoulder.

She started a little, and that’s when he made his move. He’d always loved the scene in
Dracula
where Jonathan Harker sees the Count climbing, facedown, down the castle walls and thinks,
Hey, something is up here
. Tommy had pleaded with Jody to try it, but she never would, so this was his chance. He pulled himself out of the window, hooked his fingers between the bricks, and began his climb.

And dropped thirty feet to the alley, landing flat on his back.

“Ouch.”

Upon Tommy’s impact, his intended victim had let out a very masculine scream, jumped three feet straight up, and came down sideways on her high heels. She knelt over him rubbing her ankle.

“Cheesy Christ on a cracker, darlin’. Where did you come from?” Southern, and deep.

“Slipped,” Tommy said. “You’re a man, huh?”

“Well, let’s say that is a street which I have walked, to which I do not wish to return.”

“You’re very pretty,” Tommy said.

“Sweet of you to say.” He tossed his hair a bit. “You want I should call an ambulance?”

“No, no. Thanks. I’ll be okay.”

“What were you doing up there, anyway?”

Conve niently, Tommy was still staring straight up at the sky, framed by the buildings, and he could see that she thought he’d fallen from the roof. “Listening for ‘the music of the night.’”

“Were you watching the DVD? I heard people tried to kill themselves rather than sit through it.”

“Something like that.”

“Honey, just push pause. Just push pause.”

“I’ll remember that. Thanks.”

“You sure you don’t want me to call someone?”

“No, no. I’ll call someone as soon as I catch my breath.” Tommy reached into his back pocket and pulled out a handful of broken plastic and wires that had once been his cell phone.

“Okay then, y’all take care.” She stood, turned, and walked slowly out of the alley, trying not to limp.

“Hey, miss,” Tommy called after him. “I’m not gay.”

“’Course you aren’t, darlin’.”

“I rule the night!”

She waved without looking as she rounded the corner.

“Redheads,” he growled.

He could feel his broken ribs knitting together. It wasn’t pleasant. As soon as they were healed enough, it was back to Jared’s house to eat the rat. Move up the food chain slowly, maybe.

A
n hour later the torn and tattered vampire Flood limped up the driveway to Jared’s house. Abby and Jared were smoking in the driveway.

“Lord Flood,” Abby said. “What are you doing here?”

“You look like someone opened a whole six-pack of whup-ass on you,” Jared said.

“You shut up. How did your family know I was a vampire?”

“Well, certainly not from your wardrobe.”

“Jared, I am all busted up, and I’m feeling hungry, and a little fragile. Now answer my question or I will go inside and murder your family, feed on their blood, step on your rat, and break your Xbox.”

“Whoa, drama queen much?”

“Fine,” Tommy said. He shrugged, which hurt, and headed for the kitchen door. “Find me a sack big enough for your two little sisters.”

Jared jumped in front of him. “I told them we were playing Vampire the Masquerade and that your part was the Vampire Flood.”

Abby nodded. “We used to play all the time before we actually became minions.”

“It’s like Dungeons and Dragons but way cooler,” Jared said.

“Okay.” Tommy nodded. Which hurt. There they were, two perfectly healthy donors from whom he could feed, who would be willing. And he
was
hurt, and he needed to feed in order to heal. Still, he couldn’t ask. He was staring at Abby’s neck, then looked away when she appeared to notice.

“Where’s Jody?”

“She’ll be here soon,” Abby said. “She sent us back to find you. We called but your cell wasn’t on.”

“Where is she?”

“She went to the new loft. She said she’d bring some money and what was left of William’s blood back for you. You can stay in a hotel. Jared and I can guard you.”

“She went to the loft? Where Elijah is?”

“Oh, that’s not a problem,” Abby said. “My Samurai prince burned him up while rescuing me from the blond vampire ho and her grocery-store vamplets.”

Tommy looked at Jared. “’Splain please.”

J
ust knock,” Drew said. “They’ll unlock it for you. You’re almost naked.” They stood by the front door of the Marina Safeway. Drew had healed a little from his burns, but was still bald and covered with a dusting of soot. Blue was completely healed, but wore only her charred underwear and the beige high heels that had looked so lovely with her linen dress.

Since the first time she took the stage in high heels and a bikini back in her first Fond du Lac beauty pageant, right through her career stripping and then bonking for dollars, she thought the whole idea of high heels and underwear patently absurd. Yet here she was, rich, powerful, and immortal—yet still standing around wearing high heels and underwear. This time, however, there was some rationale for the outfit beyond that it floated some horndog’s hormonal boat. At the zoo, while the Animals had pursued their prey among animals, she had found two night watchmen, each isolated on his rounds, and took them down. Unfortunately, she hadn’t taken their clothing because she didn’t want to have to explain to the Animals why she was dressed like a night watchman, since they had suddenly decided to take the moral high ground on slaughter.

The Animals had not fared so well. Drew was the only one in better shape than when they’d first been burned. He’d gone for a llama, because he’d always thought they were cute. He was able to feed only a little, however, before he was bitten and spat upon, and decided to call it a night. Gustavo had gone for a zebra, under the mistaken assumption that his experience with horses as a boy in Mexico would somehow give him an edge in handling the African equine. Consequently, he had been summarily stomped, and now had several broken bones, including a nasty compound fracture of one leg, in addition to being burned up. Jeff, the basketball failure, was still embarrassed about having been taken down by a girl, and so picked a jungle cat as
his victim, thinking that he would take on the strength and speed of his donor. His right arm was attached only by a few muscles and much of that shoulder was gone altogether. His skin was still crusty black from the waist up.

“Fuck knocking,” said Blue. The big front window had only that day been replaced, but she was going to lead her charge right through it. “Get in, find them, and take them.” She found she was falling back on her dominatrix experience a lot lately, which was not a skill in which she had complete confidence, having only recently been killed while performing it.

She took three quick steps up, snatched up the steel-reinforced trash can that Jody had used on the window only days ago, and flung it underhanded with all her strength. The can rocketed through the air, bounced off the new, double-impact-resistant Plexiglas window, and knocked Blue on her ass.

Blue climbed to her feet without making any eye contact with her undead posse, dusted off her bottom, then snapped her newly broken nose back into place.

“Well, knock then, fuckstick,” she said to Drew. “Knock, knock, knock. We don’t have all night.”

A
s soon as she unlocked the new loft’s security door from the street, Jody smelled blood, burned flesh, and shampoo. A case of the willies that felt like an electric serpent slithered up her spine. She went up the stairs, light on the balls of her feet, ready. She heard every tick in the apartment, the refrigerator motor, floorboards shifting, the huge cat Chet snoring in the bedroom, and, of course, someone breathing.

The lights were off. He was sitting in a canvas sling-back chair, barefoot, in a pair of Tommy’s jeans and a T-shirt, drying his hair with a towel. Jody stopped by the kitchen.

“Fledgling,” said the vampire. “I’m always pleasantly surprised when I am reminded of how lovely you are. Surprises are rare at my age.”

“Must have surprised the fuck out of you to have that Honda toast you, then, huh?” She felt herself tightening
down, the electric jangle channeling itself into an awareness, an edge. It wasn’t fear anymore, it was readiness.

“An unpleasant one, yes. I assume your little servant is safe for now.”

“Well, you know, she was winded for a few minutes from kicking your ass, but she
is
just a little girl.”

The vampire laughed, and Jody couldn’t help but smile. She went to the windows at the front of the loft and opened them. “Smells like burned meat in here.”

“She’ll have to go, you know,” said the vampire, still smiling.

“No, she won’t,” Jody turned on her heel. Faced him.

“Of course she will. All of them but you. I’m quite tired of being alone, little one. You can come away with me, just as we planned.”

Jody was stunned at his density. “I was lying to you, Elijah. I never intended to go away with you. I was just pretending to find out how to be a vampire.”

“What were you going to do the next night, then—if your pet hadn’t bronzed us, I mean?”

“I thought I’d send you away.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I thought I’d let the Animals kill you, like they were going to anyway.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I don’t know.” The edge was slipping. “I don’t know.” Maybe she was going to go with him. She had felt so alone, so lost.

“Ah, so here we are again. Let’s pretend like all this unpleasantness hasn’t happened, and it’s the next night, and here we are, just the two of us. The only ones of our kind. What will you do, Jody?”

“But we aren’t the only ones of our kind.”

“We are the only ones you need worry about. You do know that you are the first new vampire in a hundred years?”

Jody tried not to show her surprise. “How lucky for me,” she said.

“Oh, you’re not the only one I’ve turned. I’ve turned many. You’re the only one who could weather the change with her mind intact. The others had to be, well, decommissioned.”

“You killed them?”

“Yes. But not you. Help me clean up and then we’ll leave, together.”

“Clean up?”

“There are certain rules, love. Rules that I set down myself, and the first of them is make no more vampires. Yet you’ve let loose a storm of fledglings, and they all have to be cleaned up, including your boy pet.”

“
Make no more?
What about me? You made me.”

“I didn’t expect you to survive, love. I thought you would be an amusement, a break in monotony, an interlude, but you distinguished yourself.”

“And now you want me to run off with you.”

“We’ll live like royalty. I have resources you couldn’t imagine.”

“You’re wearing stolen jeans, sugar daddy.”

“Well, yes, I will have to make my way to one of my caches.”

“I have an idea,” Jody said, and this was really the reason she had come here, by herself, knowing that he would be here. Or at least hoping. “How about I give you enough money to get you out of town and you do that, just like we promised Rivera and Cavuto? You leave me alone, you leave Tommy alone, you just leave.”

Elijah stood now, tossed the towel on the chair, and moved to her so quickly that she could barely even see him move. “Art, music, literature,” said Elijah. “Desire, passion, power—the best of man and the best of beast. Together. You would say no to that?”

He put his hand on her cheek and she let him.

“Love?” Jody said, looking into his eyes—they reflected like drops of mercury in her night vision.

“For fairy tales. We are the stuff from which nightmares are made. Make nightmares with me.”

“Wow, nice offer. Can’t imagine why you haven’t had any takers for a hundred years.” Jody grabbed his wrist. If he wouldn’t leave, she could take him. She was a vampire, too.

The vampire had been smiling, but his smile changed aspect, going from pleased to predatory. “So be it, then.”

His hand was at her neck in an instant, she didn’t see
him move or have a chance to react. Suddenly she couldn’t move her arms or legs, and there was an intense pain behind her ear and under her jaw. She screamed, releasing a sound she couldn’t imagine coming out of a human, more like something you’d hear from a tortured cat. He clamped his other hand over her mouth.

“I didn’t teach you everything in our one night together, love.”

She watched helplessly as he tossed his head back and his fangs unsheathed.

T
roy Lee squared off against Drew at the end of the dog-food aisle, two short fighting swords in hand.

“Bring it, stoner,” Troy Lee said. He spun the swords. Drew fell into a crouch by the dishwashing liquids.

“I’m fast now,” Drew said.

“Uh-huh,” Troy said. He whipped the swords through the air in a deadly fanning motion. He’d been training since he was a child; he wasn’t afraid, especially of Drew.

“Hey,” came a woman’s voice from right beside him. Troy Lee looked over, lightning quick, just in time to register what looked like a full moon coming at his face.

There was a loud clang and Troy was nearly flipped over backwards when the iron skillet hit him in the forehead. Blue let it drop to her side and grinned at Drew. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“House wares used to be my aisle,” Drew said.

“Take him,” said Blue. “Let him drink some of your blood before he dies.” She headed toward a commotion in the can aisle. “Save some, boys. Mama’s got a broken nose that needs to heal.”

J
ody felt her own fangs extend and her kneecaps quiver as Elijah fed on her, but otherwise she couldn’t move. How could she have been so stupid? He was eight hundred years old—of course he hadn’t taught her everything. Of course he was stronger than she was—she was stronger than Tommy, and she had only been a vampire a couple of months longer than he had.

If she could stay conscious, maybe when he stopped feeding she could make her move. Could he reduce her to dust like a human, or would he have to do something else? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why didn’t she know all of this? Why wasn’t she acting on instinct? Where was the predator mind when you needed it?

Her vision started to tunnel down—she was losing conciousness. She could hear rapid footsteps outside, though. First below, then across the street, then below again. Elijah heard them, too, and he loosened his grip for an instant, but before she could twist away, his fingers dug into her neck and jaw again. Then a black blur flew through the window and she heard something thud on the floor over by the kitchen. There was another loud thud and Elijah released her and she fell to the floor. She tried to push herself
up, but something was thrown over her and she heard a buzzing sound. She heard screaming and smelled burning flesh, glass breaking, then someone was lifting her, carrying her. She couldn’t move or even fight anymore. She let go, let herself float away, but the last thing she heard was a girl’s voice saying, “Did you feed Chet?”

T
he Emperor sat on the dock of the St. Francis Yacht Club, watching the fog wash over the breakwater. He’d gone against the advice of the homicide detectives and had left the grocery store. It was his city, and it was his place to take the battle to its attackers. He had cowered in fear long enough. His wickedly pointed sword lay on the dock at his side. The men, Bummer and Lazarus, were sleeping in a fuzzy pile at his back.

“Ah, gentle warriors, how do we engage in battle when our enemy moves with such elegant stealth? Perhaps we should return to the Safeway and help defend.”

Bummer’s left ear twitched, and he let out a muffled
ruff
in his sleep.

A thick bank of fog was moving down from the opening in the breakwater and it caught the Emperor’s attention because it appeared to be moving across the wind from the west. Yes, it was indeed—the cold breeze was coming straight over the breakwater from the north. The fog bank bubbled thick as it moved, tendrils reached out and then were reabsorbed like the false feet of some crawling creature.

The Emperor climbed to his feet and roused the men, snatched Bummer up before the sleepy terrier could get his bearings, and headed toward the club house with Lazarus at his heels. He crouched in a shadow by the entrance to the restrooms, holding the hounds as he watched.

The fog bank enveloped the end of the dock, paused, then dissipated as if a fan had been turned on it, and three tall figures stood on the dock, a man and two women. They wore long coats, cashmere, the Emperor thought, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember why he might know that. They moved down the dock toward him as if they were floating. The Emperor could see their outlines in the moonlight—jawlines and cheekbones that looked as if they’d been chiseled, square shoulders, and narrow hips. They might have been brother and sisters, except one of the women was of African descent, the other looked like she might be Italian or Greek. The man was a head taller than the women and looked Nordic, perhaps German, with close-cropped white hair. All were as pale as bleached bone.

As they passed him the Emperor pulled the hounds closer and Bummer let out a threatening
ruff
.

They stopped. The man turned. “How long have you been here?” he asked.

“Forever, I think,” said the Emperor.

The man smiled and nodded, then turned and was on his way. “I know how you feel,” he said without looking back.

G
ustavo and Jeff found Barry hiding in the shelves among the toilet-paper packages. When they got close, Barry burst out of the TP and made a run for the end of the aisle, pulling napkins, aluminum foil, garbage bags, and plastic silverware off the shelves as he went to slow his pursuers. Gustavo went down first, slipping on a package of plastic forks. Jeff high-stepped through the obstacles and was right on Barry’s ass until he was almost to the end of the aisle and Lash stepped out holding one of Barry’s spearguns.

“Down!” Lash barked, and Barry hit the tile on his chest and slid.

There was a pneumatic hiss and the heavy stainless spear thudded into Jeff ’s sternum and blew him back off his feet.

“Ow, goddammit,” said the power forward, clutching at the spear and trying to pull it out of his chest.

Gustavo climbed to his feet, ran to Jeff, and started yanking on the spear.

Lash handed Barry a four-foot-long stick with a blunt metal tip on it and fitted another spear into the gun.

“That the last one?” Barry asked.

Lash nodded. “Where’s Clint?”

Just then the tall blond woman appeared at the far end of the aisle, dragging an unconscious Clint by his collar. A wide bloodstain ran from her chin to her crotch and they could see her fangs even from this distance. “Bad boys.
Leaving your born-again lying on the floor where people can trip over him.”

She dropped Clint on his face, and headed up the aisle toward them, in long, slow strides.

Lash bolted, Barry right behind them, through the canvas doors into the back room, and into the walk-in dairy cooler. It was like a long hallway with plastic milk boxes stacked on one side and the glass dairy cases on the other. They pushed stacks of heavy one-gallon milk boxes in front of the door, then leaned with their backs against the back of the cooler, watching the store through the clear cooler doors in the dairy case, over the cartons of yogurt and cottage cheese.

“What’s that she’s carrying?” Barry asked.

“A frying pan,” Lash said.

“Oh,” Barry said “Sorry I let her in. She was almost naked.”

“How could you have known?”

“Well, when she claimed she had a nooky-gram for my birthday, I should have figured something was up.”

“Your birthday’s like in March, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Lash slapped Barry hard once on his bare scalp, then re-aimed the speargun over the yogurts.

“I deserved that,” Barry said.

“Think that spear hit Jeff ’s heart?”

“Had to. It’s a foot through his sternum.”

“He doesn’t seem dead.”

“Guess that means head shot.” Barry shook his head. “You want me to try?”

“Nah, if I miss, you have the bang stick.” Lash nodded at the long stick Barry was holding at port arms. Essentially it was a twelve-gauge shotgun shell on the end of a stick, used for killing sharks. You poked them with it and the shotgun shell fired into them at point-blank range.

“I’ll bet she doesn’t even know what it is.”

“Get it right,” Lash said. “Blow her fucking brains out.”

They looked at each other as they heard the refrigeration compressors and fans wind down. Then the lights went out.

“We’re fucked,” Lash said.

“Yep,” Barry agreed.