They're So Vein (The Grateful Undead series)

by Susan Stec

  ~~~~

  Joe's Marina is a bar/restaurant/fish-camp with cabins. They mostly rent out to locals who want to get away from the wife and kids, go on a weekend binge and drive boats around the lake, fishing poles forgotten in a drunken stupor. On the weekends, you really needed to motor around the area with care, so as not to get involved in their aquatic rendition of bumper cars.

  "I know the owner, Carl," Jeni said, batting her eyes. "He's a peach. I sang at his piano bar last week. He loves me."

  "They have a piano in there?" I asked, looking at the rundown wooden building.

  "Yes, and it's lovely. A black baby grand." Jeni climbed out of the boat.

  "No shit," Zaire remarked as she joined her. "This, I gotta see."

  "I'd be a bit low-keyed if I were you guys." I frowned at Resi's T-shirt with 'I had a crush on Pippi Longstockings' clearly emblazoned across her chest.

  "Screw that," Zaire spat, pulling Resi out of the boat. "I'm gay. She's mine and I'm damn proud of it."

  Mom tugged on my shirt. "Can we get something to eat before we hole up for the night? You can't war on an empty stomach, Susan." She had the bumper in a death grip.

  I glared at her. "No biting! What the hell are we doing here, Jennifer? I'm in no mood to fight a bunch of homophobic rednecks." I pulled my mother and her bumper out of the boat.

  "Carl has a cabin on the Dora Canal and he's offered to let us use it." Jeni gently took the bumper from Mom, tossing it back in the boat. "We just need to go in, have a quick drink, make nice and get the key. Now let's pull the boat around behind the dock so it can't be seen from the lake."

  "Jennifer, unless those immortals have a boat and know the chain of lakes, it will be hours before they find us. Shit, there are miles of shoreline on Lake Harris alone, never mind the interconnected waterways."

  "Better to be safe than sorry, Mother Dearest." Jeni was once again being her pain in the ass logical self.

  "Come on Zaire, let's hide the frigging boat." I ended the argument.

  Mom sniffed the air, "It smells good in there. You think they got pizza?"

  ~~~~

  Gibbie, wedged in the side compartment of the boat with the fishing poles, listened to the women's conversation as they walked away, then carefully tried to squirm around the fishhooks and monofilament, but snagged his wing on the burr of a hook.

  He twisted around until he could grab it, gently pulling it free. "Great, just great. This will take weeks to mend," he grumbled as he leered at a small hole.

  Fluttering his wings in a high-pitched buzz, he flew toward the bar. He hovered around a large oak as the women walked into the back door of the bar. "I better get time and a half for that little trip. Paul's going to hear about this, I tell you." He buzzed off toward the lake.

  ~~~~

  The minute I entered the bar, I put my hand over my nose. The place smelled like a hooker trying to cover up crotch rot. A flowery aerosol bathroom spray tangoed with the smell of frying fish, cigarette smoke and way too many body odors.

  JoAnn just kept walking right toward a door with a restroom sign above it, while the rest of us sat at a table in the corner with mix-matched chairs.

  Almost everyone in the room was crowded around the piano, shoved into a corner. An older man tickled the keys as an assortment of off-tune singers' chucked fried food into their mouths between choruses.

  The server walked up looking like she needed an introduction to a bar of soap. Her hair - teased into a style that reminded me of our rose bushes - smelled of cigarette smoke and stale beer. Her nails were bitten down to half colored lavender nubs. Dark plum lipstick filled in the cracks above and beside lips that were pencil enhanced in a garish pout. "Hi-ya-all, I'm Stella. Whaddya’all want from the bar?" she asked, pencil poised.

  I definitely felt out of place.

  ~~~~

  Paul stripped off his clothes and tossed them in his Corvette. He pulled his car keys off the dash and plucked his fanny-pack out of the backseat. He pointed his remote at the center console and the door locks clicked. He tossed his keys, cell phone and wallet in the fanny-pack, zipped it closed, clipped the strap shut and hung it over a limb near the car.

  Paul lay down on the damp grass. His body began to vibrate. With popping noises, grunts and groans, he transformed into the large black wolf.

  The wolf got up and shook its massive body. He pushed his muzzle under the strap of the fanny pack and it slid around his neck as he trotted toward the lake.

  Paul threw back his head and howled. He pranced in front of the lake, his eyes trained on the horizon.

  Panting, he padded in the shallow water with his tail at attention, butt swaying, and ears straight up. He sniffed the air as he trotted along whimpering. He tossed his head in the air and howled again.

  "For the love of Jiminy Cricket, I hear you. Can you stop with the whining?"

  The wolf turned to the buzzing fairy and growled.

  "Glad you phased. It's a long trot to the fish camp. Let's get going before they high tail it out of there." In a flutter of wings, the fairy took off following the shoreline.

  The wolf leapt over cypress knees along the water's edge, following in hot pursuit.

  ~~~~

  My mother lay sprawled across the top of the piano, her ass hanging out for the whole group of toothless rednecks to ogle.

  "Saint Lo-o-oouey women, with a yearn for men, went to bed with her…," Mom crooned, rolling on her stomach, her feet crossed at the ankle, pumped toward the curve of her butt cheeks peeking out from under her short skirt.

  "This is a frigging nightmare," I said, grinding off a few layers of tooth enamel with equal parts of nausea, horror, and embarrassment.

  "…fou-n-tain pen… The pen was broken, fell…"

  "Someone hide me." JoAnn's look matched mine.

  "Can we hurry Stella along with the check?" Resi asked, looking around the bar.

  "Nanna's showing some ass, girl," Zaire said, grinning at Resi.

  "Jennifer, I feel now would be a good time to get those keys from Carl," I suggested.

  "Now… Saint lou-uuy women… got a bro-o-o-ken heart." Mom finished, rolled over and swung her legs over the piano. She pulled a dirty baseball cap covered with fishing lures off the man between her legs. He smiled up at her through a mouthful of pink gums. She put the cap on her head backwards and leaned in to give him a kiss.

  I gagged, thinking I needed to make sure she brushed her teeth as soon as we got to wherever we were staying tonight.

  Mom jumped from the piano in a flourish of red t-back, smiled and waved at a crowd of men, cat calling and booing at having been abandoned. She wiggled over to our table, bent over, her half-naked ass in my face, and shook her bulbous breasts at the men still yelling obscene descriptions of desire at her from the piano.

  "Swell, so much for being inconspicuous," I whispered.

  We were on our third round of drinks when Carl walked over to Jeni. He handed her a key attached to a green tag with the number four on it.

  "There you go girly-girl. I got the electric turned on yesterday, aired the place out all day, and then closed it up this morning. It's nice and cool, and the icebox is full. I also left the back door light on so you can see it from the canal. Enjoy." He winked at Jeni.

  "Thanks Carl." Jeni smiled up at him.

  "You wanna use my van? The waterways are awful dark this time of night," Carl asked, shaking the car keys.

  "No, we'll be fine. We have running lights and a good spot light. I think we can manage. It's the park off 441, right? The one in the Dora Canal, past the dock on Lake Eustis?"

  "Yep, at the end of the canal. Only cabin out there, probably nobody around for miles, so it's very private. I don't think your sister's boyfriend will find you tonight. You can stick around until the police pick him up." Carl turned a smile of sympathy in JoAnn's direction as he walked away.

  "All righty then," Zaire said, looking at JoAnn with a big smile.

  The rest of
us turned to Jeni.

  "Don't ask. I had to come up with something. Sorry Aunt JoAnn," Jeni said, her shoulders reaching for her ears.

  "Couldn't you have used your mother as an excuse? Now I'll never be able to face that man again. I bet he thinks I'm trailer park trash." JoAnn pouted.

  "Look around you. I think this crowd does ass-hole control on a daily basis," I remarked with a saucy grin.

  "Let's just get out of here. I'm so embarrassed." JoAnn sidled toward the back door, her hands in front of her face.

  ~~~~

  Chapter Twenty-two

  ~~~~

  Dorius peeked into Susan's bedroom and caught Marcus as he stood over a clothes hamper with a pair of red silk panties held up in front of his nose.

  "Marcus, what are you doing?"

  Marcus shoved the panties in the pocket of his jeans. "Just looking for clues."

  "I'm sure those panties have all the answers," Dorius said with a smirk, his eyes glued on the front of his brother's jeans.

  "Just getting their scents straight." Marcus dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

  "I can see by that lump in your pants you've gathered quite a few clues." Dorius snickered and left the bedroom.

  Marcus rumbled.

  A few minutes later, Dorius paced around the women's living room, throwing frowns at all the animals mounted on the walls. "I can't believe you just let the wolf trot off without us. He better get his hairy ass back quick, or I'm calling in the troops."

  "Why don't you read one of those books in the basket on the floor?" Marcus said. "Try 'Accidental Vampire'. That sounds apropos, or maybe a trip to the package store across the street might calm you. When did you feed last?"

  "Just before we got here. This damned Seraph blood! The endless hunger is barely worth the extra powers." Dorius rifled through the basket. He held up a set of Tarot cards, waving them at Camillio. "Just a toy, or do you think they really know how to use these?"

  "Don't be snide, Dorius, although it does suit you," Marcus answered. "They're dime store cards. Maybe you didn't notice the five-dollar and ninety-seven-cent price tag on the back."

  "How long are we going to wait?" Dorius glared at him.

  "We'll wait until the wolf calls." Marcus pulled a blood bag from a cooler by the coffee table. "I found cheap books on spell-casting downstairs. If you were doing your job instead of following me around earlier, you would have noticed them. These women are nothing more than immortals trying to learn the trade. Now be patient and find a chair before you make me angry." He held back mentioning the set of runes he'd found upstairs in Susan's panty drawer, forged from an oak tree with human blood staining the symbols.

  "Why the hell are you here getting in my shit, Marcus?" Dorius growled.

  Camillio shot both of them a nasty look. "Okay you two, let's not turn this into a pissing match. Everybody settle down. I'm going to call my mate. She's been in my head all day. Dorius, you going to call Dennis to check on Christopher, or should I ask about him?"

  "I'll do it. I need to make sure the men are ready in the event we need them." Dorius glared at Marcus, tossing the cards on the coffee table.

  "I believe we can handle this without your entourage." Marcus cut the corner off a blood bag with a pair of scissors he'd pulled from a knife block on the kitchen counter.

  "I don't like you working this end of the business," Dorius growled. "I've been doing just fine without your assistance in the field."

  Marcus watched Dorius strut toward the front door, cell in his hand, pulling at the ass of the jeans he'd borrowed from the downstairs bedroom.

  "I bet many a war has been started because someone had a wedgie," Warren commented, smiling at Marcus.

  "He's going to have more than those jeans up his ass if he calls in his boys before we talk to those women." Marcus eyed the tarot cards, poured some blood into a coffee cup, and then put it in the microwave. He hit the buttons, standing back to watch the cup circle as it warmed.

  Outside, Dorius punched in the number for Dennis at BAMVC.

  ~~~~

  Dennis sat behind his desk at BAMVC. Christopher sat across from him, his surfboard leaning against the wall behind him.

  "You know you're really pulling Dorius' chain with this new guise, don't you? Not a good idea, Christopher. He could nail your little beach-bum-ass to the wall, dude."

  "Screw him, man. I'm just trying to do what he wants and slide into something that feels right."

  The phone on the desk rang. Dennis smiled at it. "Speaking of the mouth that clothes your bitchen little ass." He hit the speaker button. "Hello Dorius, what can I do for you?" Dennis grinned at Christopher.

  "Where's Christopher?" Dorius' voice exploded from the phone.

  Christopher pulled a strand of hair in his mouth and sucked on the tip. His new dreadlocks curled about his face, hanging haphazardly around his shoulders in masses of white and yellow twirled sticks.

  "He's sitting right here in front of me, looking very… beachy."

  "I don't want him out of your sight." Dorius' angry voice floated around the room.

  "I can hear you, dude. No need to get all aggro on me, man." Christopher spit the dreadlock out of his mouth. He pulled at his 'Ron Jon's Surf Shop' T-shirt, kicking his Spiderman sandals in the air as he played with the colored beads around his neck.

  "Christopher, I am not putting up with your shit for much longer," Dorius yelled from the speaker.

  "I can always find another place to crash, Frube." Christopher popped out of the chair to answer the scratching at the door. When he opened it, Buster pranced in and licked his face. "Whoa, choka, man," Christopher giggled.

  Buster wore a red bandanna tied around his neck, and in lieu of the studded collar, he now donned a necklace made of puka shells and leather.

  "Are you still there, Dennisss?" Dorius hissed.

  Buster turned to the desk, growling. Christopher giggled.

  "Did you find the women yet, Dorius?" Dennis asked with a smile.

  "They eluded capture today but the wolf will find them. It's just a matter of time, Christopher," Dorius warned.

  "Yeah, man, but time is irrelevant, isn't it, dude? I'm just enjoying the clidros, coasting on the cutbacks until they start dumping. Got nothin' better to do." Christopher plugged his iPod into his ear. "I get bugged driving up… la-la-la-laaa… Gotta find a new place… hm-hm… hm-hm-hmmm… I get aro-ound, whaa, ooo…" He led Buster out the door with a wave of his hand, shaking his head in time with the music.

  ~~~~

  "JoAnn, will you stop throwing shit out of the boat?" I yelled. As we motored in a canal between Lake Harris and Lake Eustis, JoAnn kept tossing French fries out for the fish. Mom was equally bad with the crust from her pizza as we puttered close to the shoreline where she evidently felt comfortable.

  "Why? It's not like littering. The fish or wildlife will eat it," JoAnn mumbled through a mouthful of hamburger.

  "Because it's not good to feed them junk," I said. "There's enough food in the water and on land for the animals. When you feed them, you humanize them. That's why we find gators in our yards, or raccoons in our trashcans. You don't want any more hungry raccoons, do you JoAnn?"

  Zaire was shining the hand held spotlight hooked up to the cigarette lighter on the dash, occasionally catching a fleeting animal. No glowing eyes, though.

  "How much further, Jeni?" Mom interrupted.

  "We have to go through Lake Eustis to the Dora canal, Nan. That's where the cabin is. Maybe another half hour." Jeni studied a map of the interconnected waterways in Lake County with her small Mag-light.

  "Everyone needs to sit somewhere. Lake Eustis will be choppy. I'll motor close to shore but you can still lose your footing if I hit some waves." I turned the boat around the last corner before heading out onto the bigger lake, the Dora Canal about three hundred yards away.

  "I have to pee," JoAnn announced.

  "Hang it over the transom." Zaire tried to be helpful.
/>   "I will not. I am not falling in that water if you hit a bump."

  "A bump? We're not on a highway, Aunt JoAnn." Resi giggled.

  "I have to go, too," Mom said. "Can you pull up to land for a second?"

  I idled up to the shoreline, not at all happy with the interruption. The waves nudged the boat broadside. I pushed a button on the dashboard, raising the outboard motor.

  Mom and JoAnn sat on the gunwales, the soft patter of urine hitting the water every few seconds.

  "Ah - shit - nothing like pissing in the wind," Mom said, then wiped her backside with a napkin and tossed it on the shore.

  I growled.

  ~~~~

  "The boat isn't at the dock," Gibbie declared in a flurry of red dust. "We better find them quick or Dorius is gonna cut my wings and shave your ass."

  The wolf let out a soft growl. Turning his nose to the ground again, he sniffed around, padding in circles.

  "Now what?"

  The nose of the wolf shifted toward the canal, south of the bar.

  "You think they headed for Lake Eustis? So, what? You want to follow the shoreline around?"

  Paul made snuffling noises, liquid flying from his nose with the effort.

  "Eeew! Cut the flying body fluids, fleabag." Gibbie zipped three feet higher, wiping his shirt.

  The wolf pranced off toward the shoreline that connected with the canal. Gibbie flitted after him.

  They had just rounded the edge of the canal, moving along the beach running by the highway on Lake Eustis, when the wolf stopped abruptly and sniffed a napkin close to the water's edge. He rubbed his muzzle along the grass, up to the curve of his neck, flipping on his back, wiggling with all four paws dancing over him.