That Which Bites

chapter 9–A RECKONING



DESPITE THE NEAR DARKNESS, pink and orange halos raked the sky, brightly illuminating the moon’s rays.

Busted knees and mayhem gave Poe certain fearlessness. She could care less if she died, lived, or turned into a bloodaholic vampire. Her hate would always be with her, alive or as a walking dead.

All she knew was that there would be weeping, flagellation, and gnashing of teeth in biblical proportions if she didn’t capitalize on the coconut-sized cojones she’d grown.

“I’ll start with Trench. Then the Council,” Poe vowed.

A rather deep pothole she’d neglected to detect on the road nearly unseated her. Her eyes watered. Her back hurt and so did her leg. Poe slowed the bicycle.

She thought the goon blocking the road with his arms crossed was one of Sainvire’s, until she saw the Wyatt Earp mustache and the pirate hook screwed in his hand.

Looking like she’d just swigged a tumbler full of vinegar, Poe announced with distaste, “Pengle!”

“What up, bitch?” he greeted with a hard grin.

“Heard the shooting. Happens all the time in this cesspool, but just had to check.” Equipped with nightsticks, sidearms, and wearing LAPD uniforms, 246

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five of his posse came striding up to stand with Pengle.

One was an attractive female cop.

Lost all your fear, eh? the voice in her head taunted.

“Yes, I have,” she muttered defiantly, reaching for her Glock and stepping off the moving Schwinn.

Before the bike crashed on the ground, Poe had plugged bullets in the faces of two of Pengle’s henchmen and flung herself behind a minivan.

“You better go back where you crawled from, Pengle, before I blast away your other hand,” Poe jeered with confidence. “You know I shot your two pals in the nose and not their Kevlared hearts. I’m that good, muchacho.”

Her megalomania was rewarded with steel-tipped bullets that whizzed through the van like heated knife on butter. She ate solid cement, slamming her face into a nosebleed. Poe ran her tongue along her teeth and sighed with relief that she hadn’t chipped a tooth.

Rotten and damaged teeth were something that could drive Poe to harikari. She was that obsessed.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Poe cried as windshields exploded into hail around her.

She crawled away with a glass chip jammed just millimeters from her right eye. It was so close she could see the reflection of her lashes. She plucked it out, quickly dabbing at the drip. Poe aimed at a cop-vamp hopping on car roofs and hoods. Officer Freaky was showing off to what remained of his buddies.

With one squeeze of the trigger, Poe caught the creature in the throat and was disappointed in her accuracy. She had been aiming for his head. “Gotta do better than that, dimwit,” she said to herself.

Bullets and glass exploded all around her. She was on the verge of howling from the shards slicing her arms, elbows, and knees. A hand that snuck out 247

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from under the car stopped all that. The extremely strong tug banged her forehead against the bottom edge of a car door, giving her an instant shiner.

“Son-of-a–” her curse ended midway as she saw the tiny hand grasping her t-shirt. The sight froze her blood.

“Yikes!” she shrieked.

The face under the car was that of a beatific boy not more than four years old. If it weren’t for the glowing yellow eyes and the two-inch fangs that served as his canines, Poe wouldn’t have believed what she saw.

“Jula. Jula. Jula,” the devil boy kept repeating in a cute little-boy voice. Poe not only detested the new pronunciation of her name, it made her sick. Goss said there was nothing supernatural about the undead, but Poe, face-to-face with this entity with gleaming eyes, had to disagree.

The leering cherub with a purple tongue revolted her. “Let go, you little freak!”

She tried to pry away the tiny hands curled on the bottom of her shirt, but when she touched his skin, the devil tyke hissed and screamed like a roasting banshee, nearly blowing her eardrums out of commission. The kid withdrew his hand and Poe saw what she’d done.

Smoke wafted from where Poe’s garlic-marinated skin had left a perfect imprint.

Like a giant spider, the bloodsucking imp scuttled away as fast as he could. Unfortunately for him, Poe got over her disgust and shot the baby from under the car.

“That’s just f*cked up!” Poe shivered. Either the boy had been turned before he lost his baby fat or he was born dead. Either way, he unsettled the shit out of her. Vamp babies born of vamp parents were just too scary to contemplate.

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Unless other men in blue lurked, by Poe’s count only Pengle and his female bodyguard were left. The favorable count, however, did not distract from the barrage of gunfire that sliced through metal and popped already deflated tires. It was getting darker.

A growling Pengle goaded, “Not so easy when we have guns, eh, killer?”

A parked Ford Galaxy looking more like a boat than an automobile saved her hide. The thick car from the early 1970s took the assault with a yawn, shielding her nicely. Climbing over a skeleton in a faded muu muu, Poe hid inside the car. She really needed to retire from all this.

“Sorry about this, Miss,” she apologized to the corpse. “I’ll be outta your hair in a sec.”

Metal-tipped bullets merely pinged little indentations off of the car’s protected side, impressing Poe to no end.

If she could have hugged the immense vehicle, she would have. She made a mental note of the make, promising to get one for herself if she ever got out alive.

“What the–”

The Galaxy rose taller than any other car on the street. Poe snapped on the lap belt, even though she knew it would offer zero protection. The heavy car was hurled in the air, loudly crunching nose-first into a thin-veneered Japanese car that turned tortilla. The skeletal driver lost her skull. Her windshield didn’t fare any better, cracking into a spidery-veined mess. Poe’s queasy stomach continued to bob up and down long after the shocks stabilized.

“Er, Mom and Dad, looks like I’ll be needing your help again,” Poe prayed. “Sister and Goss, now’s a chance to help out ’cause I’m in the shits.”

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Not for the first time that day did Poe find herself surrounded and beaten up. And she needed to pee.

“Cinco de Mayo!” were the words that escaped her lips. A gruesome baby vamp with an unhealthy bluish tint banged on the windshield until shattered glass rained down on Poe’s lap. Two more babies who made Chucky seem cute as a button appeared, pointing their purple tongues at Poe. They were naked, cherubic, and obscene, chanting her name like a one-liner parrot.

“I guess these night galleries are real,” Poe said in panic.

Fingers trembling, Poe unlatched the troublesome seat belt. Her eyes didn’t dare leave the circle of faces.

“I need my James,” she whispered as she unsheathed her replacement Walther PPK from her side holster.

She had no idea where her Glocks fell, and there was no way in piñata hell she was going to bend down and look for them.

“Try it, girl, and you fry,” warned a one-eyed vamp wearing low rider jeans. He busted the driver side window with his elbow and wrenched her gun away.

There’s more of ’em, goddammit! Breathing hard, Poe wiped away the blood from her dripping nose and the cut near her eye. She glared at the walking facial hairs that surrounded her. Pengle brought more friends than she had thought.

“Lookit, the mighty vamp killer’s gonna cry,”

taunted a tight-lipped Pengle who adjusted his custom hook. “Kawana, would you get the door for me, pretty please?”

The group’s most petite vampire, who had tossed the elephantine car like it was pizza dough, kicked open her door. The inscrutable female cop who must have turned when she was in her early twenties tore the 250

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door from the vehicle like she was pulling a wing from a roast chicken. Poe couldn’t help it. Tears of frustration ran down her bloody face.

“What are you doing running with these f*ckers?”

Poe asked the pretty black cop with catwalk cheek bones. “They hate minorities like us!”

“Hey, don’t start generalizing,” Pengle answered for the police officer. “Quillon Trench only hates the ugly, unlike his mildewed counterparts. They think they come from that fictional motherf*cker Dracula’s bloodline,” he continued. His predatory stride made Poe gulp nervously.

“Oh yeah? If that was true,” Poe said with a grimace. “Then why’s an ugly guy like you not in the pit incinerating dead food? Better yet, why aren’t you wiping cattle ass right about now?”

Pengle reminded her of Han, the old villain in Enter the Dragon who almost made processed opium out of Bruce Lee’s butt. He had a hard time controlling his temper. “Babies, feed now!” he ordered.

In a breath, all three babies clambered on the clothed part of her, pawing and biting where no sign of garlic spray could be detected. Tiny incisors pricked Poe’s thighs and legs.

“Get off, you demonic kewpie dolls!” she screamed, having a hell of a time prying off the critters from her limbs. It’s like they’re crazy-glued!

“What? Are you praying, Julia?” Han number two taunted. “And lookit, she’s really crying now!”

Poe’s lopped ear tingled, a definite harbinger for further bad news. There was no Sainvire to pop out of nowhere or a Maple to bludgeon them to kingdom come. What a time to start bawling. Her heart pounded like canons. She didn’t want to join the cattle herd, and she’d been bit multiple times already.

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“This here’s the girl that gave you that iron hand?” someone asked, laughing. “She’s just a scrawny kid.”

“I know you didn’t just insult me, liver face,”

Pengle said, staring down the only vampire without a mustache.

“Nah, course not, Pengle. Just being stupid, I guess.”

Poe swallowed the disgusting taste of fear and ordered herself to get a grip. The vamps were distracted. I’m not leaving this earth fighting, not crying and begging!

On the Japanese count of three, Poe pulled out a smallish knife sheathed behind her back and began committing infanticide with the devilbabes. Each stab was fatal for the blade was slick with garlic oil. The sweet moment was spoiled by all the kelpie squeals.

“She’s killing ’em!”

“I have a clear shot, boss.”

“If anyone’s gonna do damage to that bitch, it’s gonna be me,” Pengle shouted above the ruckus to his remaining sidekicks. “She’s mine!”

Poe pushed the demonic Garbage Pail Kids off of her as she crawled from the doorless car.

“Let’s go, Pengle!” Poe yelled, tears still streaming down her face. Quit crying, stupid! It’s embarrassing! “You and me, Clint Eastwood style.

Let’s get it over with.”

Pengle looked over the girl and her pathetic little knife. He reached down his oversized cowboy boots and procured an eight-inch Bowie knife.

Poe rolled her eyes to the heavens. As a last resort she launched her own puny knife, tagging Pengle square in the heart. Unfortunately the blade, impeded by the vamp’s wool clothing, didn’t go deep enough to kill, and most of the garlic oil had rubbed off on the 252

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babyvamps. The slit of an injury itched more than anything.

“Unbelievable!” he growled at the girl who had made him a lefty, pulling out the wimpy knife and flinging it to the floor. “You’re begging for a skinning!”

“Now you’re going to get it!” chimed the mustacheless vamp associate, chuckling darkly.

In a snap of movement, Pengle was on Poe, twisting a fistful of hair and yanking her head back so she could see his face. The palpably electric loathing in the vampire’s eyes left a rotten taste in her mouth.

“A whole lotta blood’s gushing outta my nose and eye, man. Either lick it up or clean it up ’cause they’re starting to bubble.” She had no idea what possessed her to keep goading the vampire. Better dead than bled, she thought.

Thinking his hand was still attached, he slapped her with the hook. “You think you’re a funny girl, dontcha?” Pengle hissed when Poe smiled. “Well how d’ya like this, baby doll?”

The hook caught on her shirt, puncturing the upper tier sinews of her right breast and came out of the fleshy middle. He dangled a stunned Poe a foot or so from the concrete.

“Jesus!” was the only word that came out of her mouth. The pain was so intense.

“How d’ya like them apples, eh?” he repeated, his triumphant face too close for comfort.

He yanked the hook higher, soliciting a scream from Poe. The tendons and flesh were beginning to snap. All Poe could think of was the movie, A Man Called Horse.

“Okay, Pengle, that’ll do,” said a silky voiced Kawana. “Put her down.”

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Pengle ignored her and continued to suspend Poe like a slab of meat. Kawana sighed and aimed her six-gauge shotgun at two of her fellow cops who were relishing Poe’s torture as much as Pengle. They died confused and headless.

“What the f*ck?” screeched Pengle, dropping Poe’s body on concrete with his hook still caught in the flesh of the girl’s chest.

“Sorry, Pengle, but your time is up, too,” the photogenic vampire said. “Say hello to Milosevic and Pinoche for me.” Kawana discharged whatever round was left in the shotgun. Poe shielded herself as best she could from black blood and flesh. The execution complete, Kawana unhooked the claw from Poe’s breast and pulled her to her feet.

“Cancer,” Poe gasped, clutching at her breast.

“I’m gonna get cancer for sure if I don’t become a bat head first.”

“It’d take at least twenty baby bites to turn you.

They’re not that potent,” the cop said. “That’s what happens when a dead couple breeds something unnatural, disgusting, and useless. It doesn’t happen that often, but it happens.”

This fact revolted Poe more than anything. Dead breeding dead was gross. “You’re a copper and a vamp,” Poe shook her head as the officer of the law picked her up like a child and began running. They were about the same height. “Let me down, sell-out bitch, or I’ll thumb your eyes out!”

“Shut it!” the vampire hissed. “All will be explained. And if you call me sell-out again, I’ll flatten you!”

Despite the pain exploding in her chest and her pathetic baby pose, Poe remained defiant. “You’re the freak who picked up the Ford Galaxy without breaking a sweat, right? What’s wrong with this picture? I wish 254

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Goss was here so he’d do a piledriver on your coco-Nazi ass!”

Wordlessly, the vampire stopped and swung Poe like a bag of soiled diapers onto a brick walkway. Her elbow and rear took the brunt of the throw. “Mary and Joseph!” Poe cried after she got her wind back.

“I saved your skin back there, Julia Poe, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to take your lip!” the vampire roared without volume. “If I wanted you harmed, you’d be squashed already. Now you need to clam it shut so f*ckers looking to claim the bounty on your head won’t overhear us!”

“Where are you tak–”

“What did I just say?” The vamp asked her lips stretched white with frustration. “I’m taking you to Sainvire!”

(((

“She was a double major at UCLA: history and black studies. Black studies at UCLA you say? Ha!

What a joke! They accepted seven blacks for a freshman class of five thousand when the world was running normal,” Morales said, finally able to take a peek at the girl’s much maligned mammary glands. He was acting medic for the Chinatown triage station where a chunk of Sainvire’s people who survived the siege laid low. “I can’t believe you called Kawana a sell-out!”

“And a coco-Nazi,” Poe supplied as another shimmering example of her stupidity. “I feel rotten.”

“You should,” Morales frowned. “She could’ve gone on to law school or some such but she was naïve enough to think she could make a difference in law enforcement. To right some of the wrongs, you know.

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smeared its ooze.” He wiped the sweat off his brow and scratched his nose. “What the hell did this f*cker do to you? You’re going to be scarred terribly unpretty, I’m afraid.”

“What’s another hook-hole scar when there’s this centipede thingy on my face?” She watched him douse the wound on her chest with oxygen peroxide once more before sewing a few stitches. The folks fondly called him T-Doc, short for temporary doctor.

“She’s been a double agent since the very beginning, taking Trench’s shit for the good guys,”

said Morales as he made a fist. “The poor girl is a favorite of his because of her unusual Mighty Mouse strength, and because she’s a looker. Imagine doing someone like Trench for almost ten years for a higher calling? Takes brass cojones, don’t you think?”

He patted the edge of the cot. “Now let’s see that delectable thigh of yours,” the attractive smuggler winked. “I have it on high authority that Kaleb outdid himself with his claw because he’s smitten with you.”

She propped her damaged thigh and winced, demurely covering the rest of herself with a stained sheet. “You really need to work on your bedside manner, starting with the chronic licking of your lower lip and your penchant to yap. Unprofessional.”

“Godsmack! I was a real estate agent, not an MD.

I was pushed into this. Anyway, imagine if the son-of-a-gun had been in love with you?” he blanched, dabbing the swollen wounds and cleaning the dry blood around them. “Word is the two of you did the deed the other day.”

Poe choked, visibly upset about Morales’ lack of tact.

“The answer’s staring me in the face,” he said, studying the spreading flush on her face. He looked upset. “Sorry for even asking. It’s hard to be civilized 256

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when there’s no civilization left, but Sainvire ought to know better.”

Poe seethed. Sainvire had tattled, and it burned.

Between the casualties of her berserker moment and the screwing of the big boss, she knew she’d be lucky to get a space on the Chinese restaurant floor.

(((

She looked old, maybe about 25.

“Serrated hair, chopped ear, scars, scabs, and bruises,” Poe recited to the image in the mirror. “Great beauty secret you got there. You ought to bottle it.”

The reflection was a far cry from the person she had seen naked in the mirror a week ago. The woman who stared back in the chipped mirror of a fungus-encrusted bathroom was uglier, meaner, and missing a lot of moral fiber.

“Anyway, teeth time. It’s either floss or the plyers,” Poe said dryly.

After brushing her teeth and flossing, Poe put on a clean t-shirt and dark blue Dickies as crisp as chicharones courtesy of a t-shirt warehouse a block away. She slipped her socked feet into the insufferable combat boots.

“Hurry up, will ya? That’s like the only working bathroom in Chinatown!” somebody yelled, knocking on the door with a foot. “There’s like, a line out here.”

Poe compressed her mouth tightly. She knew that voice. “Hiya, Veronica,” Poe said with a nod as she opened the door. “All yours.”

“Oh hey,” the woman said nervously. “I like, didn’t know you were in there.” The woman assigned to wait for her the day before had witnessed the carnage and did not want to be on Poe’s bad side.

“Take as long as you want. I’ll stand guard.”

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“No thanks. I'm going for a walk,” she said, careful to avoid the bodies reposing in scruffy sleeping bags, then added, “Weird toilet, that. It flushes counterclockwise.”

The evasive, prying, and illicit looks she’d encountered the past days had been the hardest to take.

I’ll be lucky to get eye contact. Violence is a turn off, I guess.

Sleeping on the floor surrounded by tired souls ensconced in sleeping bags made her claustrophobic and antsy, especially when every single one was armed to the eyeball. She never would have thought that she missed being the only girl in the world again. She slipped out the back door that led into an alleyway.

With the way things were progressing, Morales seemed to be the only one who was glad she was on their side. Sainvire and Joseph were nowhere to be seen. Even Megan, her one good friend, gave her the cold shoulder and narrowed her green eyes at Poe during chance encounters. Like providence, she heard the tinkly voice of her former friend.

“Are you sure you’ve got your wiring on the tip top?” asked Megan who leaned against the alley wall, addressing Morales who looked to be running out of gas, the shadows under his eyes exaggerated by lamp light. Next to him stood a gangly black man in his late thirties vigorously wiping his spectacles on his Celtics t-shirt. Another man who looked like Jerry Garcia sat on a block of cement roasting cans of beans and SpaghettiOs on a camp stove.

“I might’ve been an office jockey, Meg, but I can follow recipes for destruction to the tee,” said Morales.

He massaged his temples. Wavy lines, the only indication of Megan’s age, appeared on her forehead.

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won’t blow anyone’s head off by accident. Anyone alive, that is.”

“Yup, I know, T-Doc,” she nodded. “Sorry for being a pain in the neck. I just don’t want any hitches tomo–”

Morales cleared his throat and nodded toward Poe who strode down the alley slowly. From the smell of it, folks had been using the alleyway for whizzing purposes.

Megan swore under her breath at the possibility of being overheard, her pursed lips looking like a pickled plum.

“Hey guys, it’s only Poe,” Morales said with a tight smile, looking from Megan to the girl. “Kaleb said to–”

“Kaleb’s said and done many stupid things,”

Megan said harshly. “And if you think you’re going to spill it to her, the one who killed our own people, then you best tuck in your sea cucumber because I’m going to yank it out and machete it.”

Without thinking, Morales shielded his manhood and clamped his mouth shut.

“It sucks to be the rotten egg in the batch,” Poe said under her breath and took a warm tin of SpaghettiOs from the grill, daring the brooding cook to tell her off. Surprisingly the Grateful Dead handed her two plastic spoons and placed two more cans on the grill without blinking.

“The f*ck do I care about their stupid plans?” she muttered as she rounded Alameda Street. “Who are they kidding? They can’t win against the Council and the master vamps. They have too many Igors and leeches eager to please.”

She hadn’t seen Sainvire since she had shot his major organs. The vampire was too busy plotting to save cattle in Los Angeles to give her the time of day.

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Poe shrugged, thinking about the master vampire she’d wronged. Guilt, a familiar companion by now, visited her thoughts once more. Sainvire didn’t have to do anything for blood cattle. He could just sit back and enjoy the grand lifestyle accorded to vampires of his stature. But he didn’t. Because of her, his plans may have been ruined. Sainvire should have turned me over to the Council. Or to Trench.

Poe limped to Olvera Street, the nearby historic street dating to Spanish and Mexican rule, with the hood of her sweater covering her face. Chinatown and Olvera Street had been looted so many times that it had become blasé to plunder it any further. Besides, most everything ethnic had come out of vogue. European antiques, especially Louis XIV and Rococo furniture, were all the rage.

The Mexican marketplace replete with an old Spanish church right out of a Sergio Leone film had always been one of her mother’s beloved places. Poe found her parents’ favorite shop bursting with fat candles, Dia de los Muertos papier-mâché crafts, hand tooled belts, and a variety of Frida Kahlo dolls.

Once she’d closed all the curtains and turned on her flameless lantern, Poe went in search of a belt. The pants she had been given were a tad loose about the waist. She found a simple leather belt tooled with a desert scene. The silver buckle was embossed with a large cactus wearing a sombrero. “Can’t be a vampire killer tripping over my pantalones, can I?”

The life-size papier-mâché skeleton mariachi band holding their instruments would have been creepy if her mother had not taught her to appreciate the dead collectibles as something artistic and part of her heritage. However, the saints and Jesus candles freaked her out. Melted, they were downright creepy.

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“Somebody’s using this place as a distillery,” Poe said quietly, sniffing the air. She flashed her pocket light at every nook until she located a hipbath full of fermenting garlic water behind the counter. The primordial ooze had the consistency of slime inside an aloe vera plant. The goopier the soup, the more acidic and lethal to vamp skin.

“Thank goodness for the Lost Boys.” She inspected the shelves under the counter and found a slew of empty squirt bottles and an open box of night vision goggles, mouthguards, and two squirt guns. She snapped the goggles on and saw green thermal nothingness as no one living shared the room. “I’ve always wanted one of these.”

So she wouldn’t forget, Poe tossed the goggles in her pack and dropped the bag on the floor. She grabbed an empty spray bottle and submerged it mid-forearm until the surface of the soup bubbled. She did the same with the toy squirt guns and threw them in her pack.

“This is a good sign. Could my luck be changing?” she asked without sarcasm.

As if in answer, Poe spotted a portable DVD

player next to the cash machine. This made her pause.

“Maybe my luck’s changed alright.” She wiped her sopping arm on her t-shirt. An index finger pushed the play button, and she was surprised to find the seven-inch screen cough static and blink back to life. The battery had some power left.

A familiar scene of Harold attempting to hang himself while a Cat Stevens song blared in the background wrenched Poe’s fragile constitution.

“Harold and Maude. I can’t believe it,” she blinked dazedly and began to sniff. “I love this movie.”

Melting on the floor cross-legged, Poe began in earnest to chomp down on her rust-flavored food without taking her eyes off the screen. There was 261

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nothing like a Hal Ashby movie to take away the blues.

Shortly thereafter, she heard tapping from one of the two windows in the store. She barely managed to swallow her last mouthful mumbling, “I knew this was too good to be true.”

She pulled out one of the 9mm guns issued to her.

It was a 15-round Astra A-90 with a silencer attachment. “Can’t a person eat in peace around here?”

she grumbled.

The tapping continued while Poe browbeat herself about the many ways she had screwed up, like stupidly walking away from the group into the pitch-black darkness and for getting tailed.

“Just do it,” Poe told herself. “It already knows you’re in here.”

She opened the domed Spanish window and aimed her gun at one of the most grotesque faces she’d ever beheld. One of its giant eyes pointed east while the other pale blue honed in on her face.

“The f*ck. What the hell do you want, butler?”

Milfred’s mouth was moving but she couldn’t quite hear.

“Well? Which Council person is lurking in the shadows?”

“It is only I, m’lady, bearing news.”

“Uh huh.” Poe waved her gun. “I’m in the middle of dinner and don’t have time for a chat.”

“Would you be kind enough to give me a hand?”

She didn’t know how it happened exactly, but Poe found herself helping the butler clamber through the window.

He was surprisingly heavy for a near-skeleton and his hands were deathly cold, making Poe question if the butler was indeed alive. As soon as Milfred hit the tile on all fours, Poe slammed the window shut. She sprayed the inside ledge with holy water slung from 262

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her new belt. She turned to the hunchback, nudging him to spread his legs so she could feel for weapons.

“So what do you have to tell me?” she asked tensely, expecting to be ambushed anytime, “Before I shoot your kneecaps off.” Poe hated to admit it, but she had discovered immense pleasure in blasting people’s kneecaps off. Especially Sainvire’s.

With a leg shorter than the other, Milfred launched himself to his feet and managed to look like an underpaid house servant once more.

“She wanted me to prepare the way, m’lady,” he started, snapping in place his tuxedo tails that were probably in vogue in the 1970s, like the outfit Steve Martin wore in The Absent- Minded Waiter.

“Prepare the way? What are you, some kind of John the Baptist?” She had seen the movie with Max von Sydow as Jesus twice. “Never mind. Who is it?

The unhinged front door plummeted to the floor in answer. A very shimmery Gwendolyn entered, wearing a see-through nighty that displayed her slightly drooping girls, au naturel, and a pair of Reebok running shoes. She looked about the place and sighed.

“Milfie, darlink, my shoes?”

Like a bound servant more than content with his lot in life, the butler reached into his tuxedo pockets and acquired Gwendolyn’s silver shoes with four-inch metal chopsticks for heels. With much pomp and ceremony, Milfred removed the bespattered sneakers from the vampire’s slim manicured feet and carefully replaced them with streetwalker shoes. Only then did Gwendolyn give Poe her full attention.

The vampire pulled out a slim Breakfast at Tiffany’s cigarette attached to an elongated pipe from the delicate elastic of her black thong underwear. She looked incredible and sexy and she knew it. Not many people could pull off the minimalist ho look.

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“No offense, but I’d hate to be the one to do your laundry,” Poe declared, her stomach tightening in one horrendous knot.

“Offense taken, human trash,” Gwendolyn hissed.

“But I’m not here to rearrange your face, girl. I’m here for Kaleb.”

“As you can see, Kaleb isn’t here, so scram. I’ve got a thing with Harold and Maude and you’re ruining our night.”

“Hmph. An old voman like zhat vit a teenager is an offense,” the vampire commented colorfully, obviously aware of the age-defying classic.

Poe rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well that’s rich seeing that you’re a thousand years old or something, and your former boytoy, Sainvire, is not even a hundred.

Isn’t that an equivalent of a mummy hitting on diaper rash?”

Gwendolyn, the Barbie of the undead, morphed into Cujo. Her blue eyes narrowed into slits and her incisors dripped into something long and sharp. The girl who’d never learned tact did not see it coming.

Gwendolyn snuck out her fist and cuffed Poe on the cheek, hurling her a few feet and rendering her unconscious for a moment. The vampire wrenched the Astra A-90 from Poe’s limp grip and tossed it to the alert butler who caught it without expression. The spray bottle she flung behind the counter.

A shadow slipped in from the gaping entrance.

The stealthy figure clad in turtleneck and gray overalls was lost on Gwendolyn if not for the cautionary cough the butler let out.

“Gwendolyn, dear, what in all that’s scalding and torrential in the rutting part of hell are you up to? I thought you were with us?” the usually cheery Wilhemina accused, her pointed face all glint and grit.

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saw the two of you hot on the scent of Julia Poe. What am I to think?”

“I am loyal, Vilhemina. For zhat zhere is no question,” explained Gwendolyn to her fellow councilwoman. “I really don’t vant to drink Plasmacore as sustenance for eternity. My life is dreary enough. But I vill do it for ze plan. Kaleb is acquiring supporters all over California. Zhat’s a very dangerous thing. But I embrace it.” Her voice became gentler, “I love him enough to help bring down the lure of vampirism.”

“Then what possessed you to pound a girl an eighth your strength? And for chrissake, don’t say it’s because of jealousy. Women have fanned the flame of that petty excuse for centuries now, and look where it got us, still living among the cave dwellers with extra pointy fangs.”

“For godsakes, Vil, don’t go into any more of your tirades,” waved Gwendolyn. “I can’t handle a lecture tonight about how vomen are raped in zheir sleep and forced to carry zheir pregnancy to term and like zhat. Ze girl insulted me, and I couldn’t stop my fist in time. Period.”

When Poe came to, the second thing she noticed after the pain in her cheek was the heated altercation occurring before her. How long had she been out?

“I am all for ze preparations, Vil. I vill kill Trench and anyone who continues ze barbaric nonsense right beside you tomorrow,” Gwendolyn pronounced. “But you’ve got to give me ze girl.”

“Gwen, don’t be insane,” Wilhemina nearly shouted. “She’s part of Sainvire’s circle and must be protected. We need everyone, and her ambidextrous skills are key. We’ve gone over the concept of emotional maturity, Gwendolyn. Petty revenge is not only silly, it’s downright–”

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“Pathetic,” Gwendolyn finished for her. “I know all zhat, but the problem is I am insane. I need to get zhis girl out of my system in order to move forward.

Zhis is vhat I do. I torture ze love interests of my ex-lovers. It keeps me from boredom and bolsters my reputation. Like you said, I am several times stronger and vill more than compensate ze loss of such as her.

Vhat’s one little girl over a force of nature like me?”

Poe got the shivers. That’s just too Glenn Close!

“This girl survived downtown. That’s miraculous in itself. It’s wrong to sacrifice her to the mania of a vampire sociopath who has a de Sade complex.

Besides, Sainvire won’t let anything happen to her. If he ever finds out that you’ve harmed her, then God help you.”

Wilhemina ran her fingers through her short-cropped brown hair and sighed. Before she could say anything more, Gwendolyn laughed.

“He’ll never know, of course,” said Gwendolyn.

The long limbed goddess shook her head and winked at the butler behind Wilhemina. And just like that, a blessed bullet muffled by a silencer went through the councilwoman’s heart and head, rendering her permanently dead.

The vampire in lingerie kicked the corpse to be sure it was nothing but a husk then blew a kiss to Milfred.

“My hero. You’re such a good boy, Milfie,” she cooed at the man’s shooting prowess. “Now get her out of zis distillery lest someone find her.”

Poe was like marmalade for witnessing the murder of Wilhemina who incidentally had tried to save her hide. Swallowing the fear that had clamped her throat, she watched Milfred drag the body out the front door. I hope he gets an aneurysm.

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“I sink you’re avake now, short-ugly girl,”

Gwendolyn said, her back to Poe.

The insult pushed out the wimpy from her veins.

Poe took offense at insults from the top-heavy blonde who, under certain lights, looked like a used-up San Fernando Valley porn star. Again Poe ruminated on her fate, convinced that had she not lived such a flower-in-the attic existence, or rather, flower-in-the-bunker existence. If fresh veggies and soy milk had been in her life, she would have been at least five-foot-eight . I shouldn’t dwell on the negative. At least my head isn’t bigger than my body.

“I figured you out, you fascist dunderhead. You hate cute, petite girls because they stole some action from freak hags a million years ago when you were born.” She swallowed hard. She didn’t measure up to the voluptuous vampire one bit. “Weren’t you like Andre the Giant back then?”

Speechless but about to blow up, Gwendolyn’s mouth opened and closed, waiting for words of anger to erupt. The girl had hit a sore spot. “You, you…”

Poe sat up and eyed her pack peeking from behind the counter. It contained her only other gun. She dove for it.

Only a foot more and she could have snatched the pack. A luminous stiletto heel kicked her mid-back, making her eat carpet fuzz. She tried to get up but the point ground down on her lower spine like a cigarette getting snuffed of life.

“And vhere do you zink you’re going, ugly moose?” Gwendolyn’s shoe lifted its pressure, landing a blow on Poe’s left kidney. Inexorable pain stung every nerve in her body, leaving her curled like a roly-poly.

“I’ve been vaiting for such a moment. I am obdurately bored and vouldn’t you know it, dateless for 267

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two years?” She kicked the pack until it clanged against the small hipbath.

“So take up knitting,” said Poe barely above a whisper. She yearned to give the dead wench a piece of her mind, but the kick to her side depleted her. “The butt floss is so over already.”

“Can’t hear you. Vhat’s ze matter, short and ugly, you don’t know how to speak English, or vhat?”

Poe took a deep breath. This f*cking S.S. troll is such skidmark! Poe was about to answer her until a kick on the side of her head made her much-abused left ear ring. All she could manage was a pithy curse and a grunt.

“Vhat vas zhat?” Gwendolyn demanded. “Vhat did you just say?”

Poe shook her head to clear her hearing and tried to rise on all fours. “I said who’d want a used up hag like you when there’s a fresh, minimally used thing like me around.”

The good trait about Gwendolyn was her inability to deliver a quick repartee. For one so old and wise with experience, she was easily stumped. Then again, her ready use of violence to shade her shortcomings nearly always saved the day. With a terrible scream, the vampire grabbed a fistful of shorn hair and pulled Poe to her feet.

“You…you…” Gwedolyn began. “You ill conceived, revolting half-breed!”

Poe almost laughed if it weren’t for the burning pain in her scalp. She was going to lose whatever hair was left on her head.

Tearing up, Poe replied, “Quadra-breed, thank you very much. There’s nothing uglier than an outdated racist bitch whose pea-brained head can’t figure out that this is California.” She inhaled a sharp 268

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breath as follicles screamed for mercy. “This is our state.”

With much discomfort, Poe twisted her body around until she faced the much taller dead. Follicles began ripping. Crying, Poe hugged the walking corpse like she was her sweetheart. Gwendolyn’s cold, jiggly breasts cushioned her face to near suffocation.

“A lesbian!” Gwendolyn screeched, trying to separate the girl from her. “Let go of me, you dyke!”

There was a hissing at first then smoke eased out from between their intertwined bodies. Gwendolyn with a look of panic in her eyes and bleated out in the language of her mother country, “Umri v layna! You vitch!”

Through the flimsy material, the vampire’s flesh burned as if chemicals had been thrown at her. Her perfect breasts and stomach hissed from contact with Poe’s shirt, still wet from when she had wiped the goo off her arm. Sometimes it pays to be a slob.

“I love your goat, too, Gwenny!” Poe untangled her hair from Gwendolyn’s grasp and dove behind the counter. The portable DVD player crashed into the hip tub while Poe hit her funny bone along the tub handle.

“You fire zhat thing at me and bid adieu to your friends,” Gwendolyn cried while pulling off the gauzy material of her nighty from her singed skin. “Haven’t you noticed how quiet it’s been ze past two days?

Leeches are forbidden to shoot. It’s so zhey can pin point vhere any noises are coming from.”

Weak and vomitous from the kicks to the kidney, Poe dipped her hand in the slimy water and crossed herself in half-mock. She staggered to her feet as soon as the Astra, missing a silencer, and the spray bottle of blessed water were in her hands. Her scalp burned from the patches of hair yanked out by the undead who wept tearlessly.

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“You, you vill die mercilessly for zhis!”

Gwendolyn vowed, as her nicely manicured hands traced the damage to her perfection. She’d never been treated so by anyone in her nearly three hundred years.

It was beyond humiliating. Her fangs tripled in length, giving her a feral, supernatural look.

Poe unscrewed the bottle and stuffed it in her pocket, paying the liquid no mind as it sloshed around her thigh. “I don’t have any friends so I don’t have a problem exploding your pie hole with this.” She lifted the Astra for emphasis and walked slowly toward the vampire.

A cocktail of wailing and screaming escaped from Gwendolyn’s beautiful Betty Blow lips. “You’d turn on your own people?” she asked in outrage.

“Sure. You see, they don’t like me much,” Poe forced a yawn. “And I’m not too happy about the patch you yanked from my cranium.”

With a quickness that took the vampire by surprise, Poe leaped at Gwendolyn. Her boot aimed at the taller woman’s ankle, landing a cracking blow.

Both of them tumbled, with Poe’s arms still clutching the vampire’s icy thigh. Poe’s hold slipped down to the ankle once they hit the floor. She ended up with a four-inch heel, but it was enough.

The enraged vampire screamed her loathing of Poe as she tried to stand on a broken ankle. “You vitch! You horrid vitch.” The vampire didn’t look so pretty anymore.

“No arguments there,” Poe nodded in agreement, straddling the tortured councilmember who most probably had never met defeat. She pulled the half-full bottle from her drenched pocket and slammed the opening into the shrieking mouth of Gwendolyn. She squeezed the bottle until its contents pumped into the vampire’s mouth as Poe fought the naked woman’s 270

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buckling. On reflex, Gwendolyn bellowed painfully and swatted the human sitting on her stomach, but to no avail.

The nemesis’ mouth dribbled with black blood as she genuflected on the floor.

“Do unto others,” Poe gritted, disgusted at how the liquid eviscerated the undead’s mouth and throat. “I doubt there’s a skilled plastic surgeon around for disgusting vampires like you. Even in Beverly Hills.

So it’s gotta be beauty or nothing.” She dipped the heel into the slime and pounded it into Gwendolyn’s chest.

The Nosferatu lay still after the fifth stab. To make the humiliation complete, every vein in her body surfaced black and hissing. The beautiful Gwendolyn was no more, and the butler was nowhere to be seen.

(((

“I gotta get outta this city,” Poe whispered to the cool night air. “I’m sick of this shit.” Eyes stinging from garlic stench and self-pity, she trudged back to the temporary base. This time she was keener, more aware of recon necessities. No more lollygagging.

Every bus bench, garbage bin, and post was suspect.

It was in this limping surveillance mode that Poe noticed movement inside a snugly parked Jeep Wrangler with deflated tires half a block from the restaurant. She took cover behind the doorway of an apothecary shop swimming with bottles of pickled roots shaped like grotesque, blobby humans.

The door opened and with only the light of the moon to guide her, Poe recognized the medium-height figure whose flaming orange hair sparked briefly as she scooted out of the vehicle.

“Megan?” her lips formed. Behind her ex-friend emerged a huddled man in a long coat. The figure 271

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appeared composed and at ease unlike her friend who fidgeted nervously and turned her head about for possible onlookers.

The two shook hands awkwardly and went their separate ways. The night was so still Poe could hear the pulsing in her ear. What’re you up to, Megan, consorting with a councilman?

She remained in the doorway until the two disappeared from sight. Poe walked the two blocks to the restaurant with a heavy heart. Who should she tattle to in case the raid tomorrow – which she wasn’t privy to – was compromised? She could not believe Megan to be a fink. Besides, Gwendolyn and Wilhemina seemed to have rallied behind Kaleb. Why not Rodrigo Jacopo?

“Hello, Julia,” an accented voice said in the alleyway leading to the back entrance to the restaurant.

Poe jumped. “I noticed you standing by the apothecary shop and thought you might have some questions.”

“Rodrigo Jacopo,” Poe said, blanching. “You must have great eyesight.”

“It’s one of my best traits,” he smiled. “Come sit with me.”

Poe hesitated at first but decided that it was safe enough to sit on a crate in the alleyway with the well-groomed vampire. One scream and the people inside would come running. She clutched the gun in her pocket to let him know she was no pushover. Over twenty bicycles, which weren’t there when she went for a walk, leaned against the alley wall.

“Are you with Sainvire?”

“Yes. I am,” he answered clearly but dripping with sarcasm.

“Um, what was that?” Poe asked, cocking her head with interest. The vampire sounded so caustic and 272

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rancorous that her eyebrow ascended a few notches on its own volition. “Care to elaborate?”

“We despise each other,” he explained flatly, shrugging his shoulders, “but we implicitly trust each other.”

Poe slapped her forehead as if conveying that either Jacopo was an idiot or she didn’t understand English. “Um, my years underground must’ve zapped my brain’s ability to decipher cryptic nonsense.

Explain yourself.”

“I apologize for the confusion, Julia. My last remark didn’t make any sense.” He laid a thick hand on his thigh. “I detest Sainvire because the woman I love has given her heart to him, and he refused it.”

“Oh, now I see,” Poe remarked, her eyebrows arched like a pair of wings. “What a prick! He should’ve accepted the gal’s offer and remained your best friend, eh?”

“Something like that,” Jacopo smiled. “And there’s also the rub that I nauseate him. Sainvire abhors my very presence.”

“Why does he hate you?”

“Because, because I broached the idea of milking the cattle to the Council.”

“But I thought he came up with the idea.” Poe sat up straighter, forgetting about keeping the gun still.

“It was his idea. He told me about it in passing, but more as a joke,” he sighed. “But I told the Council about it without Sainvire’s consent. The Council had already voted to pass it as law when Sainvire learned of it. He never forgave himself for telling me. Our friendship has never been the same since.”

Jacopo sat in silence mulling the past.

“I’m no longer involved in vampire business, Jacopo,” Poe flatly declared. “I’m on my own now, 273

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and that’s how I want it to be. So there’s no need to spill your guts any further.”

Jacopo added a twig to the fire. “That’s the reason I’m here. To tell you to lay low for a while. Something big is going to happen within the next couple of days.”

Poe’s ears reddened in anticipation despite her pretense of disinterest. “What’s going to happen?”

“You’ve not been told of it, and I’m not about to betray another secret,” Rodrigo Jacopo said with finality. “I merely warn you so you may not do anything foolish and inadvertently cause harm to my friends.”

“Oh please,” Poe said, insulted. “I already know. I have ears.”

“What do you know?”

Poe shrugged. “You’re planning to raid the three biggest blood farms in downtown on the same day.”

She’d heard snippets of conversation at the restaurant when people thought she was asleep.

“Apparently I’m not the only talebearer busybody around here.”

“Guess not. The restaurant is crawling with them.

Can’t get it in their heads that a person with their eyes closed can still hear,” Poe sighed. “I still don’t know how you all plan on freeing and stashing over three hundred cattle in one day.”

“Planning’s been in the works for over a year now. It’s been hastened by the library fiasco. And that had a lot to do with you.” Jacopo’s jewel eye glinted.

He could almost see the girl flush in the dark. “We’ll take Union Station and use the trains to transport the cattle.”

“You mean the produce and meat trains used by the holy rollers and farmers?”

Jacopo nodded. Even he was impressed by the boldness of the plan.

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“But the train routes only go to food farms. Lots of fanged farmers will be around.” She swallowed hard. “That’ll endanger your people unnecessarily, won’t it?”

“Sainvire and I have been supervising the clearing of alternative rail lines of cars and other debris for the past few months. The tracks should be completely repaired and clear by tomorrow. And if they’re not, on board the trains we’ll have vampires and halfdeads that can toss a car or two out of the way while laying down new rails.”

Poe was too overwhelmed just contemplating the gutsy plan. She remembered Kawana’s awesome strength. “And you have real farms where cattle can go and recuperate?”

“Yes, Julia. I believe Sainvire and your friends Morales and Megan have been arranging the halfway ranches to accommodate cattle.”

The way he said her name felt like hot silky chocolate going down her throat on a chilly night.

Because Poe was staring intently at her boots, she didn’t notice the vampire smile down at her.

“So can we count on you joining us?”

Poe shook her head. “No one asked me. And I haven’t seen Sainvire since the big meeting.”

“The meeting where you killed some of his people? And shot him several times?”

Poe flushed shame red in the dark. She tossed her serrated hair out of the way. “I tend to get innocent people and good vampires killed. That’s why I’ll never be included in your future world.”

“Well, can we at least get your promise that you won’t try to blow up Trench’s hotel for the next few days? We really don’t want any of the master vampires and councilmembers tightening up security and making it more difficult for us.”

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Poe nodded, her mouth clamped shut. Jacopo stood up and prepared to leave.

“Um, one more question, Jacopo,” she asked.

“Did the Council order the raid on the library?”

Only one thing betrayed his poker face. It was the engorgement of fluids on the largest vein on his forehead that pulsed erratically. Poe couldn’t make up her mind whether the telltale pounding was an indication of dishonesty or truth.

“I’m not sure.”

He knew about it. Poe’s heartbeat raced, her face heating up. She rose. Her index finger itched. “There are three of you on Sainvire’s side and you didn’t know?”

He shook his head, “It’s complicated. I can’t elaborate anymore at this time.”

The hand holding the gun wavered, but she stood up and stepped deeper into the shadowed corner away from the small fire. “One more thing, Jacopo,” she said, stopping the vampire from leaving. His face bore the expression of a person in a hurry.

“The woman you like, is it Gwendolyn?” If Jacopo knew she’d just butchered the goddess vampire of his dreams…

The councilman forced a grin. He hovered in the air with one of those smiles that was indescribably guarded and far from comforting. Poe watched him disappear in the dark purple sky. Like Sainvire, Jacopo could fly.