"My name's Abby Normal."
Tommy spoke into her ear; she smelled of hairspray and what was that? Raspberry? "My name is Flood," he said. "C. Thomas Flood." It was his pen name. The C didn't really stand for anything, he just liked the sound of it. "Call me Flood," he added. Tommy was a stupid name for a vampire, but Flood—ah, Flood—there was disaster and power there, and a hint of mystery, he thought.
Abby smiled like a cat in a tuna cannery. "Flood," she said. "Flood."
She was trying it on, it seemed to Tommy. He imagined that she'd have a black vinyl binder at school and she'd soon be writing Mrs. Flood surrounded by a heart with an arrow through it on the cover in her own blood. He'd never seen a girl so obviously attracted to him, and he realized that he had no experience in dealing with it. For a moment he flashed on the three vampire brides of Dracula who try to seduce Jonathan Harker in Stoker's classic novel. (He'd been studying all the vampire fiction he could get his hands on since meeting Jody, since it didn't appear that anyone had written a good how-to book on vampirism.) Could he really deal with three luscious vampire brides? Would he have to bring them a kid in a sack the way Dracula does in the book? How many kids a week would it take to keep them happy? And where did you get kid sacks? And although he hadn't discussed it with Jody, he was pretty sure she was not going to be happy sharing him with two other luscious vampire brides, even if he brought her sacks and sacks full of kids. They'd need a bigger apartment. One with a washer and dryer in the building, because there'd be a lot of bloodstained lingerie to be washed. Vampire logistics were a nightmare. You should get a castle and a staff when you got your fangs. How was he going to do all of this? "This sucks," Tommy finally said, overwhelmed by the enormity of his responsibilities.
Abby looked startled, then a little hurt. "Sorry," she said. "You want to get out of here?"
"Oh, no, I didn't mean—I mean, uh, yes. Let us go."
"Do you still need to get your heroin?"
"What? No, that matter is taken care of."
"You know, Byron and Shelley did opiates," Abby said. "Laudanum. It was like cough syrup."
Then, for no reason that he could think of, Tommy said, "Those scamps, they loved to get wrecked and read ghost stories from the German."
"That is so fucking cool," Abby said, grabbing his arm and hugging his biceps like it was her newest, bestest friend. She started pulling him toward the door.
"What about your friend?" Tommy said.
"Oh, someone made a comment about his cape being gray when we first got here, so he went home to redye all of his blacks."
"Of course," Tommy said, thinking, What the fuck?
Out on the sidewalk, Abby said, "I suppose we need to find somewhere private."
"We do?"
"So you can take me," Abby said, stretching her neck to the side, looking more like a stringless marionette than ever.
Tommy had no idea what to do. How did she know? Everyone in that club would have scored higher on the "are you a vampire?" test than he would. There needed to be a book, and this sort of thing needed to be in it. Should he deny it? Should he just get on with it? What was he going to tell Jody when she woke up next to the skinny marionette girl? He hadn't really understood women when he was a normal, human guy, when it seemed that all you had to do was pretend that you didn't want to have sex with them until they would have sex with you, but being a vampire added a whole new aspect to things. Was he supposed to conceal that he was a vampire and a dork! He used to read the articles in Cosmo to get some clue to the female psyche, and so he deferred to advice he'd read in an article entitled "Think He's Just Pretending to Like You So You'll Have Sex with Him? Try a Coffee Date."
"How 'bout I buy you a cup of coffee instead," he said. "We can talk."
"It's because I have small boobs, isn't it?" Abby said, going into a very practiced pout.
"Of course not." Tommy smiled in a way he thought would be charming, mature, and reassuring. "Coffee won't help that."
As Jody pushed the bundle of clothes into the storm sewer, a silver cigarette case slid out of the jacket pocket onto the pavement. She reached for it and felt a light shock—no, that wasn't it. It was a warmth that moved up her arm. She kicked the clothes into the opening and stood under the streetlight, turning the silver case in her hands. It had his name engraved on it. She couldn't keep it, like she had the folding money from his pockets, but she couldn't throw it away either. Something wouldn't let her.
She heard a buzz, like an angry insect, and looked up to see a neon «Open» sign flickering above a shop called Asher's Secondhand. That was it. That's where the cigarette case had to go. She owed it to James. After all, he'd given her everything, or at least everything he'd had left. She quick-stepped across the street and into the shop.
The owner was working the counter at the back by himself. A thin guy in his early thirties, with a look of pleasant confusion not unlike the one she'd first noticed on Tommy's face. Normally, this guy would be prime minion material, or at least based on her minion recruitment of the past he would, except apparently, he was dead. Or at least not alive like most people. He had no life aura around him. No healthy pink glow, no crusty brown or gray corona of illness. Nothing. The only time she'd ever seen this before was with Elijah, the old vampire.
The shopkeeper looked up and she smiled. He smiled back. She moved to the counter. While he tried not to stare at her cleavage, she looked more closely for some life aura. There was heat, or at least there appeared to be some heat coming off him.
"Hi," said the shopkeeper. "Can I help you?"
"I found this," she said, holding up the cigarette case. "I was in the neighborhood and something made me think that this belonged here." She set the case down on the counter. How could he have no life aura? What the hell was he?
"Touch me," she said. She held out her hand to him.
"Huh?" He seemed a little frightened at first, but he took her hand, then quickly let go.
He was warm. "Then you're not one of us?" But he wasn't one of them either.
"Us? What do you mean us?" He touched the cigarette case and she could tell that this was exactly why she had brought it here. It was supposed to be here. Whatever part of James O'Mally had been left in that cigarette case had led her here. And this thin, confused-looking guy was supposed to have it. He took what was left of people all the time. It's what he did. Jody felt some of the confidence she'd felt earlier draining away. Maybe the night wasn't hers after all.
Jody backed away a step. "No. You don't just take the weak and the sick, do you? You take anyone."
"Take? What do you mean, take?" He was furiously trying to push the cigarette case back to her across the counter.
He didn't know. He was like she was when she'd awakened that first night as a vampire and had no idea what she had become. "You don't even know, do you?"
"Know what?" He picked up the cigarette case again. "Wait a second, can you see this thing glowing?"
"No glow. It just felt like it belonged here." This poor guy, he didn't even know. "What's your name?" She asked.
"Charlie Asher. This is Asher's."
"Well Charlie, you seem like a nice guy, and I don't know exactly what you are, and it doesn't seem like you know. You don't, do you?"
He blushed. Jody could see his face flush with heat. "I've been going through some changes lately."
Jody nodded. He really would have been perfect as a minion—if he hadn't been some bizarre supernatural creature. She'd just gotten used to the idea of vampires being real, and it took some serious blood drinking to drive that reality home, and now there were other—other—things? Still, Jody felt bad for him, "Okay," she said. "I know what it's like, uh, to find yourself thrown into a situation where forces beyond your control are changing you into someone, something you don't have an owner's manual for. I understand what it is to not know. But someone, somewhere, does know. Someone can tell you what's going on." And hopefully they aren't just fucking with you,
she wanted to add, but thought better of it.
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"You make people die, don't you Charlie?" She didn't know why she said it, but as soon as she said it, she knew it was true. Like when all her other senses had been dialed to eleven, she could sense something new, like noise on the line, and it was telling her this.
"But how do you—?"
"Because it's what I do," Jody said. "Not like you, but it's what I do. Find them, Charlie. Backtrack and find whoever was there when your world changed."
She shouldn't have said that, she knew it as she was saying it. She'd just handed him an item that had been owned by someone she'd taken not twenty minutes ago. But even as regret for passing out incriminating evidence hit her, she also realized that she had left Tommy out there to wave in the wind just like this guy. Even if it was only for a few hours, Tommy had no idea how to go about being a vampire—truth be told, he hadn't really been that good at being a human. He was just a doofy guy from Indiana and she'd abandoned him to the merciless city.
She turned and ran out of the shop.
"Cocoa?" Tommy said. "You look cold." He'd given her his jacket out on the street.
He's so gallant, Abby thought. He probably wants me to drink cocoa to get my blood sugar up before he sucks the life from my veins.
Abby had lived much of her life waiting for something extraordinary to happen. No matter where she had been, there was a world somewhere that was more interesting. She'd progressed from wanting to live in a fantastic, kawaii-cute plastic world of Hello Kitty, to being a Day-Glo, Manga lollipop space girl in platform sneakers, and then just a couple of years ago she had moved into the dark gothic world of pseudo vampires, suicidal poets, and romantic disappointment. It was a dark, seductive world where you got to sleep really late on the weekends. She'd been true to her dark nature, too, trying to maintain an aspect of exhausted mopeyness while channeling any enthusiasm she felt into a vehicle for imminent disappointment, and above all, suppressing the deep-seated perkiness that her friend Lily said she'd never shed when she'd refused to throw away her Hello Kitty backpack or let go of her Nintendog virtual beagle puppy.
"He has virtual parvo," Lily had said. "You have to put him down."
"He doesn't have parvo," Abby had insisted. "He's just tired."
"He's doomed, and you're cute, and hopelessly perky," Lily taunted.
"I am not. I'm complex and I'm dark."
"You're perky and your e-dog has i-parvo."
"As Azrael is my witness, I will never be perky again," said Abby, her wrist set tragically to her forehead. Lily stood with her as she threw her Nintendog cartridge under the tire of the 91 midnight express bus.
And now she had been chosen by a real creature of the night, and she would be true to her word: she had shed her perkiness. She sipped her hot chocolate, and studied the vampire Flood across the table. How clever, that he could appear as just a simple, clueless guy—but then, he could probably take many shapes.
"I could be a slave to your darkest desires," Abby said. "I can do things. Anything you want."
The vampire Flood commenced a coughing fit. When he had control again, he said, "Well, that's terrific, because we have a lot of laundry piled up and the apartment is a wreck."
He was testing her. Seeing if she was worthy before bringing her into his world. "Anything you desire, my lord. I can do laundry, clean, bring you small creatures to quench your thirst until I am worthy."
The vampire Flood snickered. "This is so cool," he said. "You'll do my laundry, just like that?"
Abby knew she had to tread carefully here, not fall for his trap. "Anything," she said.
"Have you ever gone apartment hunting?"
"Sure," she lied.
"Okay, you can start tomorrow first thing. You need to find us an apartment."
Abby was horrified. She hadn't really tried on the idea of leaving her old life so quickly. But all that would mean nothing when she became immortal, and ran with the children of the night. But her mom was going to be pissed. "I can't move in right away, my lord. I have affairs to put in order before I make the change."
The vampire Flood smiled, his fangs barely visible now.
"Oh, it's not for you. There's another." He paused and leaned across the table. "An elder," he whispered.
There was another? Was she to become the sacrifice to a whole coven of the undead? Well, whatever. Lily would be so jealous. "As you please, my lord," she said.
"You might want to chill with the 'my lord' stuff," Flood said.
"Sorry."
"It's okay. You know this all has to be completely secret, right?"
"Right. Secret."
"I mean, I'm okay with it, but the other, the elder, she has a terrible temper."
"She?"
"Yeah, you know, an Irish redhead."
"A Celtic countess, then? The one who was with you at Walgreens?"
"Exactly."
"Sweet!" Abby blurted out. She couldn't help it. She immediately tried to hide her latent perkiness by biting the edge of her cocoa cup.
"You've got chocolate, here." The vampire Flood gestured to her lip. "Kind of a marshmallow mustache."
"Sorry," Abby said, wiping her mouth furiously with the back of her fishnet glove, smearing her black lipstick across the side of her face.
"It's okay," said the vampire Flood. "It's cute."
"Fuck!" Abby said.
Chapter Nine
It's Like Time Travel, Only You know, Slower…
THE CHRONICLES OF ABBY NORMAL:
Tortured Victim of the Daylight Dwellers
So here I am again, to open my veins and spill my pain onto your pages. My dark friend, after sixteen years of totally boring existence, I come to you at last with a glimmer of hope to break through the gloomth that is my miserable life. OMG! I have found him! Or I should say, he has found me.
That's right, my Dark Lord has found me. A for-real vampyre. He is called the vampyre Flood, and he didn't say, but I think he is descended from European royalty—a viscount or a discount or one of those.
I was in Walgreens with Jared when we saw him—and OMFG he's so hot, in a totally stealth way. I would have thought he was just a totally mainstream geek or something, with his flannel shirt and jeans, but he asked us about buying syringes and I totally saw his fangs come out. So, I was like, "I can hook you up with my dealer," like that, and then he looked at my T-shirt and saw Byron's picture on it and he quoted "She Walks in Beauty," which is like my favorite poem next to the one by Baudelaire about his girlfriend being nothing but worm food, except that Lily called that one first because Baudelaire is her fave poet and so she got the shirt with him on it, even though Byron is way more scrumptious and I would do him on sharp gravel if I had the chance.
So I went home and changed my clothes and fixed my makeup, and when we got to Glas Kat we breezed by the door like we were twenty-five or something. Jared made our IDs himself at Kinkos and we both look so mature in our pictures, although I think he overdid it with the mustache. Anyway, we were there like ten minutes, and this song came on that I really like—"Boning You in the Ossuary," by Dead Can Dub—which is so cool and macabre. And I tried to get Jared to dance, but this guy comes by and grabs Jared's cape and says, "Blacks fade much?" and that was it. Jared went into a level-five freak-out, and turned into a total fuckwit, trying to get me to hide him and stuff, and then just saying he couldn't take it anymore and he had to go home and redye right then. So he abandoned me to the dank loneliness that is the night and I bought a bottle of water and some chips and got ready to grieve my lost youth, when HE showed up. OMG!
Check it, he actually knew Byron and Shelley! He used to party with them in Switzerland when they were all young. They all did laudanum and read ghost stories and stuff, and then they actually invented Goth, right there in this villa on some lake. He is like THE SOURCE! He took me for coffee and I wanted to give myself to him right there in Starbucks. Lily w
ill be totally jealous.
So he said I have to wait. He is connected to some ancient Celtic vampire countess and I'm supposed to find them an apartment in the morning. He even gave me the name of a rental agent to call and a big wad of cash. I have to prove myself worthy of his trust, otherwise there's like no way he'll bestow the dark gift on me, and I'll totally have to finish my sophomore year and probably end up in junior college or working at Old Navy or something.
So, since we're off for Christmas break, I'm going to call this woman and go find an apartment for the vampyre Flood and the Celtic vampyre countess. And when Flood rises from the grave at sunset, I will get my reward.
I'm totally freaked about meeting the Celtic vampyre countess. Flood says she has a temper. What if she hates me? Flood says he's not really into her—it's not like that. It's like, she's his vampyre sire, and they've been together for like five hundred years, so, you know, they have history, and I can respect that.
Note: Make sure to find out if I need to move their native soil to the new apartment before we move their coffins.
Note: Do I need to have a coffin made? Is it okay if it's purple?
Oh yeah, my sister Ronnie has head lice.
Chapter Ten
Red, White, and Blue, Not Necessarily in That Order
Snow White, thought Blue.
With the seven to look after me, and me them, I could be just like Snow White. Granted, the Animals weren't exactly dwarves, Jeff Murray, the ex-high-school-basketball star was at least six five, and Drew, their resident pharmacologist, was pretty close to that height, but she wasn't exactly Snow White either. Still, they were all kind to her, considerate, and basically respectful of her, within their limits as a bunch of pot-head punani hounds. They did seem to have a decent work ethic, were loyal, didn't fight among themselves, and were relatively clean, as guys this age went.
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