"Hey, pumpkin," Jody said.
She heard a clattering at the other end of the line. "Sorry, I dropped the phone."
Oops. Not Tommy. "Who is this?"
"Uh, it's, uh, it's Steve. I'm the med student who called you about your condition."
He'd found her when she'd gone to a Blood Drinkers Anonymous meeting in Japan Town, which turned out to be a bunch of nerds with problems distinguishing fantasy from reality. Had watched her from a distance and called her on a pay phone from blocks away, ready to jump in his car and bolt if she came near him. He knew what she was.
He'd said that he had examined one of the bodies left by the old vampire. Elijah had snapped their necks so the bodies would be found, instead of turning to dust.
"What do you want?"
"Well, like I said, I'm a med student at Berkeley. Actually, I'm in research. Gene therapy."
"Yeah, next lie, please." Jody's mind was going ninety miles and hour. Too many people knew about her. Maybe she and Tommy should have left town.
"What lie?" Steve asked.
"Berkeley doesn't have a med school," Jody said. "So what do you want?"
"I don't want anything. I've been trying to tell you, I've studied the blood of the victims. I think I may be able to reverse your condition. Turn you back. I just need some time in the lab with your blood."
"Bullshit, Steve. This isn't biology."
"Yes it is. I told your boyfriend the night you turned him."
"How did you know…?"
"I was on the phone with him when you told him you were going to be together for a very long time."
"Well, that was rude, just listening like that."
"Sorry. I've managed to get cloned cells from the throats of victims to revert to their natural human state."
"Which is dead," Jody said.
"No, living cells. I just need to meet with you."
He'd pressed this before, and Jody had been willing to meet with him, but unfortunately, while she was sleeping, Tommy had put her in the freezer for a few days and she'd missed the appointment. "No meeting, Steve. Forget you know anything about this. You'll have to write your dissertation on something else."
"Well, take my number if you change your mind, okay?"
He gave her the number and Jody wrote it down.
"It's a burner cell phone," Steve said, "So you can't find me through it."
"I don't want to find you, Steve."
"I promise I won't reveal your—your condition to anyone, so you don't need to find me."
"Don't worry," Jody said. "I don't want to find you." Get over yourself, she wanted to add.
"What about the other one you warned me about?"
Jody looked at the bronze statue that held Elijah Ben Sapir. "He won't bother you either."
"Oh, good."
"Steve?"
"Yeah?"
"If you tell anyone, I'll find you, and I'll slowly snap every bone in your body before I kill you." Jody tried to make it sound cheerful, but the threat sort of cut through the bright, friendly lilt in her voice.
"Okay then. Bye."
"Yeah," Jody said. "You take care."
"The shedding?" Tommy said as he came through the door. Jody stood at the counter in her new red leather jacket, boots, and mist-tight black jeans.
Jody could hear Abby locking the downstairs door, so they had a few seconds alone.
"Look, did you want me to tell her you were just a big orange doofus?"
"I guess not. Hey—"
"She calls you Flood?"
"I couldn't tell her 'Tommy. I'm her dark lord. Your dark lord can't be named Tommy. 'Flood' has an air of power."
"And dampness."
"Yeah, it's got the dampness thing going for it, too."
Abby came in, breathing hard. She'd been sweating and her eyeliner was running in two black streaks down her cheeks. "We didn't find him. I could have sworn he was dead. He smelled like it."
"You got something against dead people?" Jody said—tough-guy voice. "Are you saying there's something wrong with dead people? Is that what you're saying? Are you saying you're too good for the dead, is that what you're saying?"
Abby stepped behind Tommy and peeked around. The kid was still out of breath from trying to keep up with Tommy, and now she was frightened, too. "No, Mistress, I think the nonliving are great. I'm all about dead people. I have a 'I Fuck the Dead' T-shirt even. I can wear it tomorrow if you want. I didn't mean…"
"It's okay, Abby," Jody said, waving it off. "Just fucking with you."
"Jody!" Tommy said, scolding. "Don't scare the minion."
"Sorry," Jody said, thinking, once again, that she might be evil. "What about the new apartment. Did you look at it?"
"We went by it. It's only a few doors down. We don't even have to cross the street."
"You think that's far enough? They won't find us there?"
"Well, at least they won't find us here. I don't think anyone's going to think that we'd only move a few doors down. They'll think we've at least left the City. What kind of idiot would only move a few doors away? It's brilliant."
"Plus an easy move," Jody said. "You guys can do it without a truck."
"You guys?"
"Well, I've got to find William, and you can't exactly run around until the shedding has subsided. Abby, do you have enough makeup to cover his face and hands?"
"Tons," Abby said. She held up her messenger bag. "But I can only help for a little while. I have to get home."
"Why?" Tommy asked. "We require your services." He meant to sound sophisticated and European, but it came out sounding lecherous.
"He means moving," Jody said. "I've got his other services covered."
"I can't," Abby said. "My sister has lice."
"So," Abby said, "the countess is kind of a bitch."
"No, she's just a dark creature of unspeakable evil," Tommy said. He had the futon on his back and was making his way down the street as Abby followed him with a lamp in one hand and a blender in the other. "In a nice way," he added—thinking that maybe he'd already made enough of an impression on Abby.
Although it was early in the evening, and it was a little unusual to see a guy walking down the street carrying a futon, followed by a Goth girl carrying a lamp and a blender, it was just unusual enough that people would have felt stupid if they asked what was going on and someone pointed out it was modern dance, or performance art, or people robbing an apartment. San Francisco is a city of sophisticates, and except for a homeless guy who remarked on the tackiness of Tommy's Pier 1 Imports decor, they had moved half of the furniture and clothing without comment.
"Do you need to feed?" Abby asked when they got back to the old loft. They were standing in the living room, where there was little left except some bookcases and the three bronze statues.
"Huh?" Tommy replied.
"I'm guessing that you need to feed," Abby said, pulling her hoodie aside and offering up her neck. "And I have to get going. I have to get to Walgreens and catch the bus home before the parental unit goes critical. Go ahead. I'm ready."
She closed her eyes and started breathing hard, as if bracing for the pain. "Take me, Flood. I'm ready."
"Really?" Tommy said.
Abby opened one eye. "Well yeah."
"You're sure?" Tommy hadn't bitten another woman. He wasn't sure if it might not be cheating. What if the whole sex thing went off the way it did with Jody? That kind of activity would kill a normal human woman, plus, he was pretty sure that Jody would not approve. "Maybe a little from the wrist," Tommy said.
Abby opened her eyes and pulled up her sleeve. "Of course, so you don't leave the mark of nosferatu." She said it with a hiss—nasss—sssss—fer-a-too—like she was speaking snake.
"Oh, it won't leave any marks," Tommy said. "You'll heal up like instantly." He was starting to feel the hunger rise in him, he could feel his fangs pressing down from the roof of his mouth.
"Really?"
"Oh yea
h, Jody bit me almost every night before I changed over, and no one ever noticed down at the store."
"The store?"
Oops. "The ye olde porridge and leeches store, where I worked, in the ye old days."
"I thought you were a lord?"
"Well, yeah, I mean, I owned the store, and some serfs, and scullery maids—couldn't get enough of the scullery maids—but I put in a shift now and then. You know, help to stir the porridge and inventory the leeches. Serfs will steal you blind if you don't watch them. Well, enough business, let's get to that feeding."
He took her wrist and pulled it to his mouth, then stopped. She was looking at him, one eyebrow sort of cocked in the air, and there was a silver ring in it, so it felt more incredulous than a normal eyebrow.
He dropped her arm.
"You know, maybe you should get home before you get in trouble. I wouldn't want my minion on restriction."
Abby looked hurt now. "But, Lord Flood, have I offended you? Am I not deserving?"
"You were looking at me like you thought I was fucking with you," Tommy said.
"Weren't you?"
"Well no. This is a two-way street, Abby. I can't ask for your loyalty if I don't give you trust in return." He couldn't believe the bullshit that was coming out of his mouth.
"Oh, okay then."
"Tomorrow night," Tommy said. "I'll bleed you within an inch of your life, I promise." The things you never think you'll hear yourself say.
Abby rolled down her sleeve. "Okay then. Will you be able to get the rest by yourself?"
"Sure. Vampire powers. Duh." He laughed, waving at the heavy bronze statues like they were nothing.
"You know," Abby said, "the man and the turtle are cool, but that woman statue, you should get rid of that. She looks kind of skanky."
"You think?"
Abby nodded. "Yeah. Maybe there's some church or something that you could donate it to. Like, to show how you don't want your daughter to grow up. Oh, sorry, Lord Flood, I didn't mean to say church."
"No, I'm okay," Tommy said. "I'll walk you out."
"Thanks," Abby said.
He followed her downstairs and held the door to the street, then at the last minute, as she was walking away, she turned and kissed him quickly on the cheek. "I love you, Lord Flood," she whispered in his ear. Then she turned and ran up the sidewalk.
Tommy felt himself blush. Dead as he was, he felt heat rise in his cheeks. He turned and trudged back up the steps, feeling the full weight of his four, maybe five hundred years of life. He needed to talk to Jody. How long could it take to find one drunk guy with a giant cat?
He dug his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the number of the phone he'd given Jody. He could hear it ringing on the kitchen counter where she had left it.
Chapter Fourteen
Powers for Good
The Emperor was sitting on a black marble bench just around the corner from the great opera house, feeling small and ashamed, when he saw the striking redhead in jeans coming toward him. Bummer lapsed into a barking fit and the Emperor snatched the Boston terrier up by the scruff of the neck and stuffed him into the oversized pocket of his coat to quiet him.
"Brave Bummer," said the old man. "Would that I could still hold that kind of passion, even if it were fear. But my fear is weak and damp, I've barely the spine for a dignified surrender."
He'd felt like this since he'd seen Jody outside the secondhand store, where she'd warned him away from the owner. Yes, now he knew her to be one of the undead, a bloodsucking fiend—but then, not so much a fiend. She had been a friend, a good one, even after he had betrayed Tommy Iff to the Animals. He could feel the City's eye on him, could feel her disappointment in him. What does a man have, if not character? What is character, if not a man's measure of himself against his friends and enemies? The great city of San Francisco shook her head at him, ashamed. Her bridges slumped in the fog with disappointment.
He remembered a house somewhere and that same look on the face of a dark-haired woman, but mercifully, in an instant that memory was a ghost, and Jody was bending to scratch behind the ears of the steadfast Lazarus, who had never been agitated by her like his bug-eyed brother, who even now squirmed furiously in the woolen pocket.
"Your Majesty," Jody said. "How are you?"
"Worthless and weak," said the Emperor. She really was a lovely girl. He'd never known her to hurt a soul. What a cad he was.
"I'm sorry to hear that. You have plenty to eat? Staying warm?"
"The men and I have this very hour vanquished a corned beef on a sourdough roll the size of a healthy infant, thank you."
"Tommy's Joynt?" Jody said with a smile.
"Indeed. We are not worthy, yet my people provide."
"Don't be silly, you're worthy. Look, Emperor, have you seen William?"
"William of the huge and recently shaven cat?"
"That's the one."
"Why yes, we crossed his path not long ago. He was at the liquor store at Geary and Taylor. He seemed very enthusiastic about purchasing some scotch. More energetic than I've seen him in many years."
"That was how long ago?" She stopped petting Lazarus and stood.
"Little more than an hour ago."
"Thank you, Your Majesty. You don't know where he was going?"
"I should think to find a safe place to drink his dinner. Although I can't claim to know him well, I don't think William passes the evening in the Tenderloin often."
Jody patted the Emperor's shoulder, and he took her hand.
"I'm so sorry, dear."
"Sorry? About what?"
"When I saw you and Thomas the other night, I noticed. It's true, isn't it? Thomas has changed."
"No, he's still a doofus."
"I mean he is one of your kind now?"
"Yes." She looked up the street. "I was alone," she said.
The Emperor knew exactly how she felt. "I told one of his crew from the Safeway, Jody. I'm sorry, I was frightened."
"You told the Animals?"
"The born-again one, yes."
"And how did he react?"
"He was worried for Thomas's soul."
"Yeah, that would be Clint's reaction. You don't know if he told the other Animals?"
"I would guess yes, by now."
"Okay, don't worry, then, Your Highness. It's okay. Just don't tell anyone else. Tommy and I are leaving the City just like we promised those police detectives. We just have to get things in order."
"And the other—the old vampire?"
"Yes. Him, too."
She turned and strode away, heading into the Tenderloin, her boot heels clacking on the sidewalk as she kept her pace just below a run.
The Emperor shook his head and rubbed Lazarus behind the ears. "I should have told her about the detectives. I know that, old friend." There was only so much weakness he could confess to at one time—that, too, a fault. The Emperor resolved to sleep somewhere cold and damp tonight, perhaps in the park by the Maritime Museum, as penance for his weakness.
There was no way she was going to remember his new mobile number. It was five in the morning before Tommy had finished moving all of the furniture, books, and clothes. Now the new loft looked almost exactly like the old loft had looked, except that it didn't have a working phone line. So Tommy sat on the counter of the old loft, looking at the three bronze statues and waiting for Jody to call.
Just the three statues left to move: Jody, the old vampire, and the turtle. The old vampire looked fairly natural.
He'd been unconscious when he'd been bronzed, but Tommy had the biker sculptors downstairs pose him as if he was in midstep, out for a stroll. Jody was posed with her hand on her hip, her head thrown back as if she'd just tossed her long hair over her shoulder, smiling.
Tommy turned his head to the side, getting perspective. She didn't look skanky. What made Abby say the statue was skanky? Sexy, well yes. Jody had been wearing some very low-cut jeans and a crop top when he'd posed her for th
e electroplating, and the bikers had insisted upon exposing more of her cleavage than was probably decorous, but what could you expect from a couple of guys who specialized in making high-end garden gnomes acting out the Kama Sutra?
Okay, she looked a little skanky, but he didn't see how that was a bad thing. He had actually been delighted when she came streaming out of the ear holes to materialize, stark naked, in front of him. If she hadn't killed him, it would have been the fulfillment of a sexual fantasy he'd nurtured for a long time. (There had been this old TV show he'd watched as a kid, about a beautiful genie who lived in a bottle—well, Tommy had done some serious bottle polishing over that one.)
So the Jody statue stayed. But the old vampire, Elijah, that was a different story. There was a real creature in there. A real scary creature. Whatever bizarre events had brought them to this spot had been set off by Elijah Ben Sapir. He was a reminder that neither he—Tommy—nor Jody had chosen to be vampires. Neither had chosen to live out the rest of their days in the night. Elijah had taken their choices away from them, and replaced them with a whole new set of scarier, bigger choices. The first of which was how the hell do you deal with the fact that you have imprisoned a sentient, feeling being in a shell of bronze, even if he is an evil dick-weed from the Dark Ages? But they couldn't let him out. He'd kill them for sure if they did. Really kill them, too, a complete death, the kind with no nooky.
Suddenly Tommy was angry. He'd had a future. He might have been a writer, a Nobel Prize winner, an adventurer, a spy. Now he was just a foul dead thing, and the furthest his ambition would reach was his next victim. Okay, that wasn't really true, but still, he was pissed off. So what if Elijah was trapped in bronze shell forever. He'd trapped them in these monstrous bodies. Maybe it was time to do something monstrous.
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