As he walked back through the Tenderloin, dressed in his “please rob me” white boy outfit, a jittery crackhead in a hoody that had once been green, but now was so dirty it was shiny, tried to rob him with a screwdriver.
“Give me your money, bitch.”
“That’s a screwdriver,” Tommy said.
“Yeah. Give me your money or I’ll stab you with it.”
Tommy could hear the tweaker’s heart fluttering, smell the acrid stench of rotting teeth, body odor, and urine on him, and could see an unhealthy, dark gray aura around him. His predator mind flashed the word “prey.”
Tommy shrugged. “I’m wearing a leather jacket. You’ll never get a screwdriver through it.”
“You don’t know that. I’ll get a running start. Give me your money.”
“I don’t have any money. You’re sick. You should go to the hospital.”
“That’s it, bitch!” The crackhead thrust the screwdriver at Tommy’s stomach.
Tommy stepped aside. The tweaker’s movements seemed almost comically slow. As the screwdriver went by, Tommy decided it might be best if he took it, and he snatched it away. The robber lost his balance and tumbled forward into the street and lay there.
With the flick of his wrist, Tommy threw the screwdriver onto the roof of a four-story building across the street. Two guys who had been standing in an alley a few feet away, thinking about taking the robbery over from the crackhead, or at least robbing him if he was successful, decided they would rather go see what was happening on the next block.
Tommy was a half a block away when he heard the uneven, limping footsteps of the crackhead coming up behind him. He turned and the crackhead stopped.
“Give me your money,” said the tweaker.
“Stop robbing me,” said Tommy. “You don’t have a weapon and I don’t have any money. It’s totally not working for you.”
“Okay, give me a dollar,” said the crackhead.
“Still don’t have any money,” Tommy said, turning his pants pockets inside out. A note from inspector 18 fluttered to the sidewalk. He heard movement above-claws on stone-and cringed. “Uh-oh.”
“Fifty cents,” said the crackhead. He put his hand in the pouch pocket of his hoody and pointed his finger like it was a gun. “I’ll shoot.”
“You have got to be the worst armed robber ever.”
The crackhead paused for a second and pulled his gun-posed hand out of his pocket. “I have my G.E.D.”
Tommy shook his head. He thought he’d left the cats behind, but the felines either still had some connection to him, or there were so many of them now that there was nowhere in the City you could go where they wouldn’t be hunting. He didn’t relish trying to explain the whole phenomenon to Jody. “What’s your name?” he said to the crackhead.
“I’m not telling you. You could turn me in.”
“Okay,” Tommy said. “I’ll call you Bob. Bob, have you ever seen a cat do that?” Tommy pointed up.
The crackhead looked up the side of the building to see a dozen cats coming down the bricks, face-down, toward him.
“No. Okay, I’m not robbing you anymore,” said the tweaker, his attention taken by the clutter of vampire cats descending on him. “Have a nice evening.”
“Sorry,” said Tommy, meaning it. He turned and jogged up the street to put some distance between himself and the screaming, which only lasted a few seconds. He looked back to see the crackhead gone. Well, not really gone, but reduced to a pile of gray powder amidst his empty clothing.
“It’s how he would have wanted to go,” Tommy said to himself.
He would have thought the cats would go for the two in the alley, but now they were taking the people right out on the open street. He was going to have to get Jody and talk her into leaving the City, like they should have in the first place.
He jogged the twelve blocks to the loft, careful not to run so fast that he might be noticed. He tried to look like a guy who was just late getting home to his girlfriend, which, in a way, he was. He waited outside the door for a moment before pushing the buzzer. What was he going to say? What if she didn’t want to see him? He didn’t have any experience to draw on. She’d been the first girl he’d had sex with while sober. She was the first girl he’d ever lived with. She was the first to take a shower with him, to drink his blood, to turn him into a vampire, and to throw him broken and naked through a second-story window. She was his first love, really. What if she sent him away?
He listened, looked at the plywood still over the windows, sniffed the air. He could hear people inside, at least two, but they weren’t talking. There were machines running, lights buzzing, the smell of blood and rat whiz wafting under the door. It really would have felt better if there were romance in the air, but, well, okay.
He ran his fingers through his hair, snatched away the last strands of fishing line trailing from his clothes like errant crystal pubes, and pushed the button.
FOO
Foo had just placed the vials of Abby’s blood in the centrifuge when the buzzer on the intercom went off. He flipped the switch, then looked over at Abby, lying on the bed. She looked so peaceful, undead and drugged and not talking. Almost happy, despite having a tail. But the police wouldn’t understand. He ran into the living room and shook Jared out of the game-induced trance he had entered on his game console. Foo could hear the death-metal sound track coming from Jared’s headphones, tinny screeching and tiny chainsaw rhythms, like angry chipmunks humping a kazoo inside a sealed mayonnaise jar.
“Whaaa?” said Jared, yanking out his earbuds.
“Someone’s at the door,” whispered Foo. “Hide Abby.”
“Hide her? Where? The closet is full of medical crap.”
“Between the mattress and the box springs. She’s skinny. You can mash her in there.”
“How will she breathe?”
“She doesn’t need to breathe.”
“Sweet.”
Jared went for the bedroom, Foo for the intercom.
“Who is it?” he said, keying the button. He really should have installed a camera. They were easy to wire and he got a discount at Stereo World. Stupid.
“Let me in, Steve. It’s Tommy.”
Foo thought for a second he might pee a little. He hadn’t finished building the high-intensity UV laser, and Abby hadn’t worn her sun jacket. He was defenseless.
“I can see why you might be mad,” said Foo, “but it was Abby’s idea. I wanted to turn you back to human, like you wanted.” Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. Tommy was going to kill him. It would be humiliating. The guy didn’t even have an undergrad degree. He was going to be murdered by an undead Anglo liberal-arts tard who quoted poetry.
The buzzer went off again. Foo jumped and keyed the intercom.
“I didn’t want to do it. I told her it was cruel to put you guys in there.”
“I’m not mad, Steve. I need to see Jody.”
“She’s not here.”
“I don’t believe you. Let me in.”
“I can’t, I have things to do. Scientific things that you wouldn’t understand. You have to go away.” Okay, now he was a tard.
“I can come in, Steve, under the door or through the cracks around the windows, but when I go back to solid, I’ll be naked. Nobody wants that.”
“You don’t know how to do that.”
“I learned.”
“Oh, that’s cool,” said Foo. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Could he get the door shut and duct taped before Tommy could ooze in. The great room was already taped up to contain the rat fog.
“Buzz me in, Foo. I have to see Jody and I have to feed. You still have some of those blood pouches, right?”
“Nope. Sorry, we’re all out. And Jody’s not here. And we’ve installed sunlamps all over the loft, Tommy. You’d be toast.” He did have some blood bags. In fact, he still had some of the ones with the sedative in it that he’d used to knock Abby out.
“Steve, please, I’m hungry and hurt and
I’ve been living in a basement with a bunch of vampire cats and if I turn to mist my new outfit is going to get stolen while I’m up there snapping your neck with my junk hanging out.”
Foo was trying to think of a better bluff when a dark sleeve shot by him and he heard the door lock buzz downstairs. He looked up at Jared. “What the fuck have you done?”
“Hi,” Tommy said in Foo’s ear.
“He sounded so sad,” Jared said.
THE OLD ONES
At sundown the three awoke inside a titanium vault under the main cabin and checked the monitors that were wired like a nervous system to every extremity of the black ship.
“Clear,” said the male. He was tall and blond and he’d been lean in life, so he remained so, would remain so, forever. He wore a black silk kimono.
The two females cranked open the hatch and climbed out into what appeared to be a walk-in refrigerator. The male closed the hatch, pushed a button concealed behind a shelf, and a stainless-steel panel slid across the hatch. They walked out of the fridge, into the empty galley.
“I hate this,” said the African female. She had been Ethiopian in life, descended from royalty, with a high forehead and wide eyes that slanted like a cat’s. “It was to this face that Solomon lost his heart,” Elijah had told her, holding her face in his hands as she died. And so he called her Makeda, after the legendary Queen of Sheba. She didn’t remember her real name, for she had worn it for only eighteen years, and she had been Makeda for seven centuries.
“It’s different,” said the other female, a dark-haired beauty who had been born on the island of Corsica a hundred years before Napoleon. Her name had been Isabella. Elijah had always called her Belladonna. She answered to Bella.
“It’s not that different,” said Makeda, leading the way up a flight of steps to the cockpit. “It seems like we just did this. We just did this-when?”
“A hundred and fifty years ago. Macao,” said the male. His name was Rolf, and he was the middle child, the peace-maker, turned by Elijah in the time of Martin Luther.
“See what I mean,” said Makeda. “All we do is sail around cleaning up his messes. If he does this again I’m going to have the boy drag him out onto the deck during the day and video it while he burns. I’ll watch it every night on the big screen in the dining room and laugh. Ha!” Although the oldest, Makeda was the brat.
“And what if we die with the sire?” asked Rolf. “What if you wake up in the vault on fire?” He palmed a black glass console and a panel whooshed open in the bulkhead. The cockpit, big enough to host a party for thirty, was lined in curving mahogany, stainless steel, and black glass. The stern half was open to the night sky. But for the ship’s wheel, it looked like an enormous Art Deco casket designed for space travel.
“I’ve died before,” said Makeda. “It’s not that bad.”
“You don’t remember,” said Bella.
“Maybe not. But I don’t like this. I hate cats. Shouldn’t we have people for this?”
“We had people,” said Rolf. “You ate them.”
“Fine,” said Makeda. “Give me my suit.”
Rolf touched the glass console again and a bulkhead opened to reveal a cabinet filled with tactical gear. Makeda pulled three black bodysuits from the cabinet and handed one each to Rolf and Bella. Then she slid out of her red silk gown and stretched, naked, her arms wide like Winged Victory, her head back, fangs pointed at the skylight.
“Speaking of people,” said Bella. “Where’s the boy? I’m hungry.”
“He was feeding Elijah when we awoke,” said Rolf. “He’ll be along.”
Elijah was kept below in a vault similar to their own, except the prime vampire’s vault was airtight, locked from the outside, and was fitted with an airlock system so the boy could feed him.
“Irie, me undead dreadies,” said the pseudo-Hawaiian as he came up the steps, barefoot and shirtless, carrying a tray of crystal balloon goblets. “Cap’n Kona bringin’ ya the jammin’ grinds, yeah?”
The vampires each spoke a dozen languages but none of them had the slightest idea what the fuck Kona was talking about.
When he saw Makeda stretching, the blond Rastafarian stopped and nearly dumped the goblets off the tray. “Oh, Jah’s sweet love sistah, dat smoky biscuit givin’ me da rippin’ stiffy like dis fellah need to poke squid with that silver sistah on de Rolls-Royce, don’t you know?”
Makeda fell out of her “Nike” posture and looked at Rolf. “Huh?”
“I think he said he would enjoy violating you like a hood ornament,” said Rolf, taking a snifter from the tray and swirling dark liquid under his nose. “Tuna?”
“Just caught, bruddah,” said Kona, having trouble now balancing the tray while trying to hunch to conceal the erection tenting his baggies.
Bella took her snifter from the tray and grinned as she turned to look out the windscreen at the City. The Transamerica Pyramid was lit up in front of them, Coit Tower just to the right, jutting from Telegraph Hill like a great concrete phallus.
Makeda took a slinky step toward Kona, “Should I let him rub oil on me, Rolf? Do I look ashy?”
“Just don’t eat him,” Rolf said. He sat in one of the captain’s chairs, loosened the belt of his black kimono, and began working the Kevlar bodysuit over his feet.
“Quaint,” said Makeda. She took another step toward Kona, held her bodysuit before her, then dropped it. In an instant she had gone to mist and streamed into the suit, which filled as if a girl-shaped emergency raft had been deployed inside. She snatched the last goblet out of the air as Kona flinched and dumped the tray.
“Will you oil me up later, Kona?” Makeda said, standing over the surfer now as he cowered.
“Nah need, matey, you shinin’ plenny fine. But dat other ting bein’ a rascal fo’ sure.” He held his hand to his chest and ventured a glance up at her. “Please.”
“It’s your turn,” said Bella with a smile, her lips rouged with tuna blood.
“Oh, all right,” said Makeda. “But use a glass.”
Kona reached into the pocket of his baggies and came out with a shot glass, which he held with both hands before his head like a Buddhist monk receiving alms.
She pushed her thumb against one of her fangs, then let the blood drip into Kona’s shot glass. Ten drops in, she pulled her thumb away and licked it. “That’s all you get.”
“Oh, mahalo, sistah. Jah’s love on ya.” He drained the blood then licked the shot glass clean, as Makeda watched and sipped her tuna blood. After a full minute, with the ersatz Hawaiian still lapping away at the glass, his breath heaving like he was hoisting the anchor by hand, she took the shot glass and held it away from him. “You’re done.”
“Bug eater,” Bella said, disgusted. Now she was in her own bodysuit and had drained her goblet of blood.
“Oh, I think he’s cute,” said Makeda. “I may let him oil me up yet.” She ruffled Kona’s dreadlocks. He was staring blankly into space, his mouth open, drooling.
“Just don’t eat him,” Rolf said.
“Stop saying that. I won’t eat him,” said Makeda.
“He’s a licensed captain. We need him.”
“All right. I’m not going to eat him.”
Bella walked over, yanked a dreadlock from Kona’s head, and used it to tie back her own, waist-length black hair. The surfer didn’t flinch. “Bug eater,” she repeated.
Rolf was back at the cabinet, snapping together various bits of weaponry. “We should go. Grab a hood, gloves to go with the sunglasses. Elijah said they had some sort of sunlight weapons.”
“This is different,” said Bella, gathering all the high-tech kit from the weapons cabinet, as well as a long overcoat to cover it all. “We didn’t have all this in Macao.”
“As long as you’re not bored, darling,” said Rolf.
“I hate cats,” said Makeda as she pulled on her gloves.
18. Carpe Noctem
MARVIN
Marvin the big red cadaver d
og had done his job. He sat and woofed, which translated from the dog meant, “Biscuit.”
Nine vampire hunters paused and looked around. Marvin sat in front of a small utility shed in an alley in Wine Country, behind a particularly nasty Indian restaurant.
“Biscuit,” Marvin woofed. He could smell death amid the curries. He pawed the pavement.
“What’s he doing?” said Lash Jefferson. He, Jeff, and Troy Lee carried Super Soakers loaded with Grandma Lee’s Vampire Cat Remedy, other Animals had garden sprayers slung on their backs, except for Gustavo, who thought that making him carry a garden sprayer was racial stereotyping. Gustavo had a flame thrower. He wouldn’t say where he got it.
“Second Amendment, cabrones.” (The guy who sold Gustavo his green card had included two amendments from the Bill of Rights and Gustavo had chosen Two and Four, the right to bear arms and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. [His sister Estrella had had seizures as a child. No bueno.] For five bucks extra he threw in the Third Amendment, which Gustavo bought because he was already sharing a three-bedroom house in Richmond with nineteen cousins and they didn’t have any room to quarter soldiers.)
“That’s his signal,” said Rivera. He was wearing his UV-LED leather jacket and felt like a complete dork. “When he sits and does that with his paw he’s found a body.”
“Or vampire,” added Cavuto.
“Biscuit,” woofed Marvin.
“He’s fucking with you,” said Troy Lee. “There’s nothing here.”
“Maybe in the shed,” said Lash. “There’s no lock on it.”
“Who would leave anything unlocked in this neighborhood?” asked Jeff.
“Biscuit please,” woofed Marvin. They had an agreement: As consideration for finding dead things, the cadaver dog, heretofore referred to as Marvin, shall receive one biscuit. There was some flexibility, however, and Marvin understood that in this case, they weren’t looking for dead humans, but dead cats, and despite their inherent tastiness, Marvin was not to eat the findees. “Biscuit,” he rewoofed. Where was the biscuit? It had been months since he’d led them to the dead things. (Well, it seemed like months. Marvin wasn’t very good with time.)
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