That Which Bites

chapter 3–A NEW WORLD UPSIDE DOWN

A SWISH OF WIND smacked her face. Her trusted James clanged on the sidewalk, sliced in two like her Uzi.

When Poe opened her eyes, the same raging vampires hissed malevolently. The gun she held to her head lay by her feet in pieces, and a tall man she’d never seen before stood inches from her. His middle finger that looked more like a mini-sword retracted into a regular size digit.

He cut up my James! thought Poe with annoyance, her fear momentarily overshadowed.

He gave a cursory glance at Poe before turning his back. But it was enough. It was as if his strange eyes branded her synapses, leaving them etched in her mind.

“Go home, all of you,” the looming figure said with a quiet voice resonating with authority and power.

Only Pengle had the audacity to protest.

“This is none of your affair, Sainvire.” He dragged out the name as if it left a trail of sticky dirt in his mouth. “She shot Trench and killed a score of our people. We have first rights.”

“Wrong. I was the one who stopped her. She’s mine,” Sainvire answered tranquilly.

“You just got here,” Pengle said as he shook his fistless hand at the master vampire. His face contorted with rage, and a perceptible trembling began from his 81

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knees to his bulky shoulders. “We were on the verge of capturing her.”

“You mean her corpse, don’t you?” His expression mimicked a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Without pomp and preamble, Sainvire pointed at the girl’s Walther PPK on the wet pavement. The litter of bodies on the street that led to the hotel was not quite so easily forgotten. “As I understand, vampires can’t lap up a dead human’s blood. It would kill us.”

“I lost my hand to that bitch,” Pengle roared, raising his maimed left hand for effect. “So lay off.”

“Sorry about your hand, Pengle, but if you have a problem with my claim then you can take it up with the Council,” Sainvire retorted coolly, his expression benign. Pengle immediately took the look as insolence and arrogance that came with being a master vampire.

“The Council! Screw that! Why are you nosing around other people’s business? Don’t you have enough fresh necks for your straw? You have a library full of them,” Pengle accused, dribbling with hate and envy.

Sainvire considered his words before saying,

“Yes, I do have many necks to choose from. But not one this young.”

Pengle’s enhanced olfactory sensory neurons could smell the warm, iron tang of blood on Poe’s injured skin, and he felt entitled. Most vampires were insulted by having to sup on cold refrigerated blood.

He was one of them. He especially resented the privileged few who imbibed warm blood through straw attachments each night. Like many, Pengle believed in the thrill and excitement of the hunt. It was an innate right of the undead and shouldn’t have been banned by the Council and irritating vampires like Kaleb Sainvire.

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“You,” Pengle bellowed, too angry to do anything but make a fist with his remaining hand. “You greedy–

”

“Think what you want, Pengle, but she’s leaving unharmed.” He turned and faced Poe. The girl still reeled from pulling the trigger on herself. Even in the dimly illuminated street, she was startled by the silver-gray intensity of the notorious vampire’s dark-rimmed eyes. Only the white line running vertically from the top of Sainvire’s upper lip to his nostrils interrupted her perusal.

Before Poe could make sense of what was going on, Sainvire spoke. His voice was purposely low so no undead could overhear. “The moped is behind a garbage truck. Second alleyway to your right.”

Poe stared mutely at him or rather his cleft scar.

She felt like she ought to belt him one but was distracted by his nice manners. The vampire’s mouth twitched in amusement. “Plenty of time to stare later, Poe. You’ve got to get out of here.”

Her face immediately warmed. Without turning back, Poe ran, ignoring the wound in her thigh and the shards still embedded in her skin that burrowed deeper with every movement.

True to his word, the green Vespa was parked behind a garbage truck a short distance away. Poe took the key from around her neck, her fingers fumbling.

“Quit shaking, nincompoop,” she ordered herself and hopped on her trusted vehicle. The Vespa’s dependable engine burst to life. Maneuvering the little moped out of the clammy, cockroach-encrusted alleyway was cake.

“Penny girl, hope you’re still holding on. Forgive me for wishing you dead back there. I meant what I said about needing a reason to live,” she cooed tiredly 83

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to her new pet. “I’ll treat you real good. You can’t leave me.”

The slick road wasn’t as easy to manage in the dark, however, especially around the water-swept areas. Poe had no idea where she was going. It was too damn dark. She couldn’t go directly to her bunker because she was sure an undead was on her tail already. She decided to lead whatever was following her down to Santee Alley, in the heart of the Fashion District.

“The whole world’s a Skid Row cesspool,” Poe whispered to the dog.

The freezing rain added to the physical and mental beating that left her blue and shaking. Her waterproof trench coat wrapped warmly about the little dog. Poe had nothing on but her black Pixies t-shirt full of holes and soaked army cargo pants. With no weapons of any sort, only candy bars as hard as shin bone, Poe almost wished that the vampires would just hurry up and finish her off.

She could have ended it with a bullet had it not been for Sainvire’s interference. The creature was not ugly enough to be a wretched vampire.

“He didn’t even look pasty!” she grumbled. She’d never heard of a vampire with healthy skin color unless they were halfdeads. Even Trench had the complexion of bleached rice.

“He knew the name I go by,” Poe gritted, realizing too late.

Sainvire hadn’t called her Julia like the contemptible Trench vampire. He called her by her last name – a name only Goss, Sister Ann, and a few smugglers knew about. Her two friends were dead.

Maybe Sainvire ordered their torture. Was he there when Goss was bled to death? The thought made 84

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her insides boil. She stopped being cold, her body shook with rage.

“You’re dead, Sainvire,” she promised, vowing that she would kill the bastard before offing herself.

Poe cranked harder on the gas.

“Why didn’t he let me kill myself or leave me behind for Pengle?” she asked the rain.

She knew the answer. He believed the horseradish Sister and Goss had spread; there were hundreds of organized humans waiting to stab, behead, and hack to pieces the city’s vampire population while they slept.

A vampire’s worst nightmare to be sure. Her friends’

only means of making their deaths meaningful was by chiseling away the undead’s sense of safety.

They were able to fool Trench and Sainvire into thinking that they would be summarily executed. Very smart. Why, even Trench easily believed the hogwash she fed him about underground guerillas numbering over a thousand. To her knowledge, the outfit consisted of about three dozen, seven of whom she’d personally met.

She could feel it in the back of her neck.

Somebody was following her, probably after some extra brownie points. Having the reflex of one acquainted with a two-wheeler late in life, Poe cranked the throttle nervously, causing the moped to skid into a pool of murky water that stank like shit marinade. The Vespa fell on its side and pinned Poe’s injured leg. In that helpless position, two vampires advanced. They jogged. Some vampires had less impressive powers than others.

A golden-haired undead with a drawn-on pockmark on his chin hissed and roughly grabbed Poe by the shoulder. He wore a delicate cotton shirt with fluted 18th century buccaneer sleeves. Only the last few 85

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buttons from the mid-abdomen down were clasped, exposing his chesty hair. He wore red lipstick to boot.

“Great. Anne Rice fans,” Poe muttered under her breath and rolled her eyes to the crying sky. His companion, a breathtaking Asian vampire with long, curly hair, appeared at his side. Her lacy bodice pushed up her ample bosom, barely covering her silver-dollar nipples. Silky lingerie from Frederick’s of Hollywood completed her look. It was no wonder they let the non-white vamp hang around instead of giving her ethnic ass latrine duty.

“What did you utter, wretched girl? I didn’t quite hear you,” she said in a very affected British accent, her fangs elongating in the half-moonlight. Poe could swear she detected a Valley accent under the facade.

“I said,” Poe answered hoarsely, attempting to unpin her injured leg, “you guys are swell. So original.”

“It’s very foolish of you to mock us,” Lestupid butted in, running his press-on nails lightly along Poe’s scar. He sounded like Keanu destroying Macbeth.

“Very foolish, indeed,” Asian Marie Antoinhack hissed, licking her luscious lips.

“When did you guys turn? In the ’80s? ’90s?

Somewhere in Encino, right?” Poe shook her head, far from being afraid. She’d cut off Goss’ head and watched helplessly as Sister twitched her last breath on the lobby floor. These ridiculous posers in silk and velvet hardly incited fear in her. She just wanted to go home or be dead already. “So stupid. Pamela Anderson and Jean-Claude Van Damme could probably do better–”

The blond vampire buried his hand in Poe’s hair and lifted her up like a rag doll. The moped made a watery thud sound as it fell to the gurgling asphalt when Poe’s leg was freed.

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“Iza, take the right. The left is mine.” He indicated the throbbing pulse on each side of Poe’s neck. He lost the shoddy English accent.

“With pleasure, lover,” the woman purred, baring her fangs.

“I wouldn’t d-do that if I were you,” Poe stammered now that she realized she didn’t want to be drained to death after all. At least not yet.

“And why not?” the gorgeous vamp asked, her rain-soaked nipple peeking.

“Because I ate stacks of garlic for lunch,” she answered lamely. If only she had followed the ruckus in her head and actually chewed some garlic before heading out to Goss’, she wouldn’t have been in this situation.

“Cream of broccoli soup,” the woman declared with a laugh. “And crackers. You ate soup and crackers.”

“You can’t fool my Iza,” Blondie said. He shook his head in admonition. “She was a chef at Ginza Sushiko and knows her food.”

“She’s got broccoli flowerettes in her teeth,” Iza stated flatly, clearly annoyed at her man. “And I told you to stop telling every jerk we encounter that I was a goddamn cook!”

While the two lovebirds bickered, Poe searched for the broccoli bit in her mouth with her tongue. I can’t believe I’m actually embarrassed by vamps that ransacked Hot Topic, the lamest commercial chain store of its kind, Poe thought. Truly unpunk!

The two turned their attention back to her – their Double-Double Burger for the evening. This time they looked with malevolence and a united front. Poe closed her eyes, waiting for the twofold bite as she felt the couple’s cold mouths descend on either side of her neck. This is it? Dinner for two?

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Once again she was wrong. Instead of getting four fang holes, Poe simply fell onto the submerged pavement. She scrambled out of the way as the left half of Iza rained down from the heavens. When Poe looked up, she witnessed Kaleb Sainvire crack Blondie’s head with a head bunt and stab the vampire in the heart with a fingernail, sharp as cut diamonds and lengthened at least twelve inches before her eyes.

Sainvire’s nail reverted back to its natural length as soon as Blondie’s twitching body splashed down on the wet ground. Like an eager mouth, the groove of his finger absorbed whatever juice kill clung on the nail.

Arm yourself, stupid, the voice in her head bullied.

His erector nails are bad enough, but he’s Kaleb Sainvire. She spotted a broken wood beam riddled with lengthy oxidized nails on the ground and picked it up.

Before Sainvire could turn her way, Poe leaped and whacked the vampire across the back, grunting, “Take this!”

The vampire cursed.

Great. He’s some sort of uber-vamp, Poe thought distractedly. Something was off about the master vampire, but she couldn’t quite place her finger as to what it was.

The man staggered, touching his left shoulder as if in pain. “You better quit that, Poe,” he said, his polite warning laced with menace.

“Go bury your face in your a*shole,” Poe spat, high on the pungent combination of fear and adrenaline. She struck him again on the skull, this time jumping higher to reach the tall man’s tousled, wet head. The scattered nails sunk their rusty points.

Sainvire shook and turned to look at the soggy, undersized vampire rustler with a piece of wood in her hand. The head of a pitiful looking dog peered out of her backpack. Avoiding the vampire’s angry gaze 88

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illuminated by the headlights of the Vespa, Poe lunged again, aiming for the face. Sainvire had enough.

“No more!” he ordered with barely controlled cool. The imposing vampire intercepted the beam and broke it in half on his knee, leaving Poe with a handful of splinters.

That’s really it. The shithead Sainvire is going to finish me off. Her messed up JKD moves learned from DVDs seemed laughable at that moment. She wished for her lost Uzi. In an epiphany, Poe remembered the dart thrower around her neck containing whittled down toothpicks dipped in garlic oil.

She put the device in her mouth and blew. The first dart hit Sainvire’s forehead while the second hit his neck. The vampire caught the third with his deft fingers mid-air.

“Enough!” he roared with the tone of a man truly annoyed. The scar above his lip was as white as her own. Poe obeyed, defeated. It occurred to her what was off about the vampire. His right shoulder was slightly warped and stuck out a little too forward.

The rain pounded harder than ever, eviscerating the scent of waste and animal feces. Sainvire pulled the pathetic darts and flung them threateningly to the ground.

A weak “Shithead” was the only thing she could think to say.

She assumed the fighting stance that almost all the martial arts disciplines taught in the numerous videos she had studied. Left leg lifted slightly for a block or parry, Poe cursed the man silently, vowing to go down fighting. She didn’t kick her punching bag and metal rod in the bunker thousands of times over the years to cultivate leg calluses for nothing.

“C’mon,” Sainvire commanded. “We’ve got to leave this place.”

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Unable to order the vampire to go jump in the dirty L.A. River without churning up a bout of stuttering, Poe punched at the rain and kicked at the flooded street.

“F-fff*ck off!” she managed to say. Short, sweet, and to the stuttering point.

Anger left Sainvire’s face, replaced by a patient, Andy Griffith smile. His expression further pissed off Poe, who believed the vampire was making fun of her speech impediment.

The near grin left his face, however, as the squalling of a flock of livid vampires filled the air.

What happened next was a blur. Like a bad Sam Peckinpah movie, Poe watched Sainvire efficiently hack to pieces five undead with his elongated talons where they stood, leaving a litter of heads and limbs on the flooded ground. She couldn’t help but notice his teeth growing to monster size in the hazy light of the moon.

“Scary f*cker,” Poe said under her breath as she watched him demolish Trench’s brood.

Before the corpse of a fifth vampire even ate cement, Sainvire secured his claws around Poe and propelled them both skyward.

Dizzy and in awe of the fight, if it could be called that, Poe held on to the vampire’s marble arms. Her bladder threatened to burst.

“P-put me down, or I’ll kill you,” Poe threatened feebly, her hand automatically reaching for her only weapon, the candy bar in her pocket. Her stomach was in her mouth.

If his fellow vicious dead failed to scratch Sainvire, what made her think she could? It was common knowledge that vampires couldn’t carry another human in flight. They could drag them up a few feet from the air a short time. If Sainvire could 90

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soar over the city like Superman with an embittered and suicidal Lois Lane as baggage, then Poe was truly screwed.

“Afraid I can’t do that right now,” Sainvire explained. “You’ll go splat if I do.”

She said nothing else. The flight and the burning tightness around her ribs from the pressure of the vampire’s hold brought on vertigo and something akin to claustrophobia.

Within minutes, Poe caught a view of the pyramidal tower of the Los Angeles Central Library that bled into a long and deep structure of eclectic Egyptian Mission design. The massive library, over 100,000 square feet, had been a monumental part of her childhood.

Her parents had religiously taken them down most Saturdays to tinker with the computers and listen to volunteer grandparents read boring stories years below their grade levels.

The inside had been a mix of state-of-the-art technology, modern art, and a splattering of contemporary architectural hodgepodge. Even though she hadn’t been inside since she was eight, she could still picture every single detail in her head, including the great escalators that festooned the library from top to bottom and the three-dimensional papier-mâché art hanging from the ceiling.

Her visit to memory lane was cut short as they descended toward the front entrance of the library. An angular and chiseled Asian undead met them, his black head of hair falling in unruly waves around his smiling, strangely likeable face. He wore no shirt despite the rain, showing off his slim yet muscular build as well as the massive dragon tattoo that covered his entire back.

The handsome man with full red lips grinned at Sainvire, his fangs showing.

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“Joseph,” Sainvire said, returning the medium-height vampire’s grin and clapping him on the shoulder. “How goes it this evening?”

“Just fine, Kaleb.” Joseph inclined his head then opened the door for the two. “Just the usual, you know.

Like, say, a couple dozen infuriated cops banging on the doors demanding a certain someone’s genitals.”

“Wonder who that unfortunate creature could be?”

Sainvire let Poe enter first. “I see you brought trouble with you,” Joseph dropped casually, his eyes scanning the girl’s exposed wounds.

The sight and smells of the oh-so-familiar foyer brought a stab of memories. The place still hinted of plaster, Pine-Sol, old books, and crayons. Only now, a strong antiseptic smell dominated. The corner where the information booth used to be now housed a vampire of South Asian descent clicking away at an old computer. The checkout booths seemed the same except for the intimidating looking group of black and Vietnamese undead futzing around behind the counter and giving her the once over.

I thought minority vamps are out of vogue unless they’re purty. Are those Latina humans handling firearms?

The little gift shop to her right displayed antique weaponry dating back from the French and Indian War to the American Civil War, no doubt pilfered from museums. Three middle-aged Latinas continued their conversation in Spanglish while cleaning and loading modern firearms. Their eyes never strayed from where she stood.

“Trench isn’t going to like this one bit,” she heard Joseph comment.

She looked over her shoulder and found the two speaking more quietly, obviously talking about her.

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“I wonder if those muskets still work,” she muttered to herself. “What I’d do to use them right now.”

Risking it, Poe hung right while the Sainvire and Joseph chatted. The walls, once bedecked by black and white city photographs and questionable kids’ art, now boasted Chagall, Christo, Kandinsky, Miro, Dali, Maholy-Nagy and other paintings she vaguely remembered seeing at museums like LACMA and the MOCA with her parents. There were at least fifty paintings on this floor alone.

Her reverie was interrupted by the low voice of the master vampire startlingly close to her ear.

“Have you an interest in art, Poe?”

Poe frowned. Her mother was a local artist. And what an incredibly stupid question from the man who single-handedly turned humans into heifer!

“Who doesn’t?” she answered snidely. Then she remembered complaining along with her siblings, Joe and Sirena, that they were tired of looking at weird, ugly paintings over and over again, and they wanted to go to the movies already.

“Hmm. Good point. Lousy ice-breaker I chose there.” He ignored Poe’s scowl. Instead his gaze lowered to the pool of water and blood collecting on the floor. “You need to dry up and get that glass out of your skin. The wound in your leg is hampering your steps.”

Hot from feeling like a dirty, dripping plebe with broccoli in her teeth, Poe intentionally shook her wet hair, splashing some of the precious paintings. She stomped on the pool of rain and sewer. “You’re right. I better be dry and clean before you drink me through a straw.”

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She just had to piss him off in some way. Deep down, however, she felt her parents’ disapproving scowl at her irreverence to the art they had so admired.

The vampire didn’t even blink an eye. He merely indicated that she follow him up the escalator.

“Um,” Poe began slowly, trying hard to speak clearly. “If you’re gonna drink my blood, you better axe my head. ’Cause if I turn vampire, I’ll make sure to return the favor. And if I end up as cattle, I might just snap out of my stupor one day and stab you in your sleep.”

“I’ll give it some serious thought.”

Poe touched the key around her neck, imagining gouging the vampire’s disturbing eyes with it. They ascended each floor without speaking. Poe noticed more paintings, even in heights where no ordinary human could reach.

Poe could barely contain her foul mood, until she figured out where they were heading. The painted sun dome loomed above their heads, and the children’s literature wing was only a few steps away. Memory was bittersweet.

Then she remembered Penny. The poor dog was still in her pack probably soaked and shivering while she toured the goddamn museum with an evil and calculating dead guy.

She unslung her pack, lowered it to the floor, and found that the dog was not in her bag. Jesus, the poor dog must have fallen from the air!

“ Oh, no!” Poe cried, imagining vampires making a bony meal out of her.

“I deserve to be butchered, no doubt about it,” she said quietly. Slumped in defeat, Poe covered her clammy face with her bleeding hands. She had forgotten about Sainvire until he placed a hand on her 94

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shoulder and spoke. The vampire was kneeling next to her.

“Penny is being taken care of.”

At the mention of the dog, Poe stood up and looked down at the master vampire. She itched to stab his eye out with the rosary cross dangling from her neck.

“Where’s my dog?”

Sainvire rose, looking limbless in his black coat.

Wordlessly he pointed to the children’s wing. Poe forced herself not to run, motioning for him to lead the way. With her heart beating like a demolition ball descending upon a condemned building, she followed.

The last thing on her mind was to glance around the familiar place with the giant tapestries and murals of Indians and settlers on the walls. Her family had attended a lecture once where California historians tore apart the murals because the headdress depicted was a typical feathered stereotype instead of an accurate representation of west coast Native American attire.

Poe ignored the familiar carpet with happy chickens and gleeful barnyard animals.

Sainvire turned a corner, into the wing where the carved puppet theater still stood. On the stage crouched Joseph and a human. Between them lay an unconscious Penny on a bed of soft yellow comforters and pillows.

Poe noticed the tray of syringes next to the dog’s head and immediately flew into a rage.

“What the –”

With a pole vault leap, she charged at the human leech holding a hypodermic needle. The move was so unexpected and silent that both Sainvire and Joseph were genuinely taken aback by the attack. Poe launched herself at the human girl, taking her over the edge of the stage and onto the carpeted floor with a wallop.

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“You wanna bleed my dog, you gotta go through me first,” she hissed.

Like a maniac, Poe repeatedly punched the petrified taller girl in the face while screaming nasty epithets she had learned from Scarface and Clerks.

Sainvire and Joseph looked at each other, silently agreeing the spectacle was invigorating despite the violence. It wasn’t every day that two attractive women wrestled on the ground. When Poe stabbed Samantha’s thigh with the syringe, however, Sainvire had seen enough. Like a puppy getting carried by the neck, Sainvire lifted the still-kicking Poe by her t-shirt. He unceremoniously deposited her on the floor, her gutter mouth still rattling non-stop.

“You goddamn vampire. I’m going to suffocate you with your crushed nuts!”

When his order for silence fell on deaf ears, Sainvire had no choice but to clamp a hand on Poe’s mouth.

“Poe, be quiet!” he commanded. “You’re giving me an unforgivable headache, and last I heard, my kind doesn’t get headaches.” He kept his hand clamped on the smuggler’s mouth. “How’s Samantha, Joseph?”

Sainvire asked over the sound of Poe’s muffled curses as she tried, unsuccessfully, to capture his arctic fingers with her sharp teeth.

“Beaten up and sedated,” he sighed, shaking his head. “She’ll be black and blue tomorrow.” He pointedly stared at the wriggling Poe on the floor.

“And to think, she was just trying to patch up this ratty old dog.” Poe stopped her struggling, feeling guilt suddenly.

“How’s the mutt’s tongue?” Sainvire inquired, knowing full well the answer.

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“It stopped bleeding,” said Joseph, again flashing Poe a quick accusatory look. “I watched Sam here stitch the serrated wound closed.”

“Must have been quite a job.”

“Yup.” Joseph lifted the brown-haired Sam, making sure to pause in front of Sainvire and Poe for dramatic effect before walking away. “I told her to let me just do a mercy killing and break its neck, but Samantha wouldn’t have it. She just wanted to help.

Tsk tsk.”

At this point, Sainvire’s hand fell away. Poe avoided eye contact with him. Instead, she crawled to the dog’s makeshift bed. She looked at Penny’s well-bandaged legs and peeked inside the dog’s open mouth. Sure enough, Poe could see neat black stitches.

Shamed but tremendously relieved, she swallowed the urge to hide behind the puppet stage. She had beaten a human who had tried to patch up her dog. She was no better than them. A tear threatened to fall, but she quickly wiped it with the dog’s soft ear. And she had thought Penny was coarse all over.

She inhaled a shaky breath to clear her throat as well as her mind. Something nagged at her. The whole thing was wrong. Why didn’t Sainvire leave her as a vampire snack for Trench’s people? Why the annoying rescue at the risk of pissing off Trench and his thugs?

Why didn’t he drain me dry? And how did–

“How did you know my dog’s name is Penny?”

Sainvire appeared across from her in a flash and kneeled before the dog. His large hand smoothed Penny’s coarse stomach hair. Poe’s injured hand resting on the dog’s ear looked puny and filthy next to his bigger and more immaculate hands. Just thinking about his retractable nails gave her the creeps.

“I’ll tell you,” he paused, making sure their eyes met, “after I take the shards out of your skin.” When 97

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Poe didn’t answer, Sainvire went on, eyelids slowly descending on his dark-rimmed gray eyes, perfect for a walking corpse. “Unless of course, you’re afraid of me.”

Damn right. I’m scared shitless of you, thought Poe acrimoniously. You’re one scary mofo that can slice all of me like thin salami. Sainvire was the baddest, most powerful vampire she’d ever had the misfortune of meeting. There was a reason why he had saved her hide, and it made her sick to her stomach to think about it.

“I’m not scared of your ugly mug, Sainvire. Go ahead and do your worst,” she enunciated. Her quip would have been more effective had she spoken faster and with more boom instead of moronically slow to avoid stutterspeak. What else could a girl who had survived an onslaught of idiot vampires do?

“Then come with me.”

(((

Poe followed Sainvire to the wing across the domed hall. Her squelchy Adidas desecrated the quiet.

Her muscles ached. Her soaked clothing didn’t help either. Limping slightly, the nail wound in her thigh caused discomfort. She could feel every shard and splinter lodged in her flesh as they sliced deeper with every step. The vampire slowed his long gait to accommodate her. She detested him for it even more.

If memory served her correctly, the rooms within had been a gallery of sort. It had held The Wizard of Oz exhibit at one point.

Sainvire waited for her to enter the room then closed the heavy door behind them. The spacious exhibit space was gone. In the center of the room stood the biggest bed Poe had ever seen, although that wasn’t 98

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saying much because most of her years had been spent sleeping on a ratty futon mat. The impressive streamlined bed of the late Art Deco period was dull silver.

The long room had an assortment of intricately carved desks and divans. The place had a feel of Metropolis from 1940s DC Comics. Only a dash of paintings appeared on the walls, mostly the minimalist abstract impressionist work of Rothko and Newman.

By the window, Poe noticed an arresting nude painting of a dark-haired woman, eyes shut, painted in warm orange-brown tones. Below the painting, Poe read the name, Amedeo Modigliani.

“You’d think she was painted by Gaugin, wouldn’t you?” Sainvire asked, noting Poe’s appreciative, open-mouth scrutiny.

Her examination of the woman ended then.

Berating herself, Poe silently swore. She had been staring at a naked picture of a woman in the lair of a vampire. How Rat Pack is this?

To save face, she voiced the first artsy thought to enter her mind. “Right. The guy who painted fruits and naked Tahitians, right? Then he molested them all afterwards.”

“Not exactly,” said Sainvire as he indicated a table laden with medical supplies. Poe sat on Sainvire’s right, placing her arms on the clean cloth covering the table.

“This shouldn’t sting so much,” he assured the girl.

“Well don’t hold back on my account,” Poe gnashed.

Shrugging, the vampire poured hydrogen peroxide on her wounds until they fizzled, and with deft hands, picked up a pair of tweezers. One by one, the sounds of 99

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glass dropping into a tin container filled the uneasy silence.

Color drained from her face. Each extraction hurt like magnified paper cuts, only deeper, wider, and with a squeeze of lime. Poe forced an immovable cattle rustler veneer.

“You want me to stop?”

“No. Doesn’t bother me,” she said, lying through her teeth.

Despite the warning her brain shouted, Poe snuck a tentative look at the vampire before her. This corpse with dark hair that rivaled her own, fastidiously plucking shards from her arms and palms was dangerous. He very well could have tortured Sister Ann and Goss. And yet, why did Poe find herself having to feverishly work to despise the guy? The vampire mystique was wreaking havoc in her already addled mind.

She didn’t encounter a decent-looking vampire everyday. The ping of glass hitting the tray echoed in the room. Poe marveled at his black coat, completely dry already. Did he have some sort of inner dryer function to go with the retractable digits? And how was he able to get Penny out of the pack without calling attention?

Again she stole a look at the vampire. For such a little thing, the harelip scar was pronounced. He could never be handsome, she thought. Not with a nose that looked like it was bashed in by the great Ali himself.

But who was she to talk? Her face bore a deep vampire slash that dwarfed Sainvire’s twenty times over and could never be hidden with cosmetics.

Despite the facial quirks and the deformed shoulder of the undead before her, Poe had never seen anyone so striking. Each defect came together to form an interesting visage. Outside of movies, he was the 100

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most interesting-looking person she’d ever met, except, of course, her father, Goss, and Morales. But those men never made her feel strange. Goss was gay.

Morales was an arrogant prick.

Long black eyelashes feathered his smooth cheeks as Sainvire carefully ministered to a particularly nasty cut near Poe’s elbow. His touch was mortuary-cold, but he was peculiarly warming, like the feeling in her gut after two swigs of whisky.

“Sorry. My hands are cold,” Sainvire said, like he’d read her mind.

“That happens when you’re dead.”

No wonder he wore a lot of black. It wasn’t to perpetuate the cliché vampire look or to veil his gnarled shoulder, but to complement his dark hair and eyelashes that truly seemed like hairy tarantula legs.

His high, slightly twisted nose had a tiny bump on the bridge, making him look menacing and of this earth at the same time. He could have been a poster boy for all the beaten up and downtrodden Roman soldiers of old.

And then there were his lips.

His lips weren’t cursed like the majority of leeches and vampires she’d killed who unfortunately had thin lines for mouths. His were simply lush and riveting. The more she sat staring, the more interesting the thin upper lip scar looked.

Stop it! The words in Poe’s head halted further musings, forcing her to look away.

Your friends were killed today, for chrissake! Legs is dead and Penny is tongueless, she admonished herself. That no-good Pengle had called her a bitch – a first in her lifetime. It’s sick to drool after the one vampire that could’ve set up the torture and death of my friends. He’s a regular Mengele. He’s the one who came up with cattle milking.

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“Did I hurt you, Poe?” Sainvire asked, concerned that he had tugged too hard on a piece of glass shaped like Florida.

“No.” Poe couldn’t help herself. “Look, why don’t you just suck my blood? Get it over with. This Frankenstein patching before eating me is sick.”

Sainvire looked up briefly from his ministering, shocking her yet again with the wintery tint of his eyes.

The vampire lowered his gaze and dug out a fat piece of glass lodged near her left thumb. “I’ve already had my dinner, but I’ll take you up on your offer one of these days.” To further his point, he threw her a suggestive smile and licked the bloody shard with relish.

Poe looked away muttering in a low, cowardly voice, “You try it, and I’ll pull your guts out through your eyes and feed them to Penny.”

The vampire succeeded in spooking the socks off of her. Needing to know the truth, Poe broke the quiet by asking shakily, “Did you have Goss for dinner?”

The memory of her comrades drained of blood twisted her empty stomach into a knot.

Sainvire blinked slowly, never leaving Poe’s volatile gaze. “No. I didn’t.”

“H-how do you know Penny’s name and mine if you didn’t torture them?”

Sainvire dabbed the last cut with ointment and applied a Band-Aid. He wiped his stained hands with a cloth and smiled at Poe. “There. All done.” He stood up and pointed to an open door. “I’ll tell you what you need to know after you get out of those wet clothes and take a hot shower.” He handed her a bottle of peroxide.

“Make sure to put some of this liquid on the wound on your left leg. You don’t want the infection to get worse.”

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“I don’t want to take a shower,” she said, purposely ornery.

“It’s up to you,” he shrugged. “But you’re covered in foul water. If you’re into bacteria and disease, then more power to you. In any case, you won’t get any answers from me.”

“Why the hell not?” Poe demanded.

“Because I refuse to sit in a room with you another minute.” He presented her with a beneficent Gandhi smile and added, “You stink.”

Before Poe could protest, the vampire strode out of the room, leaving Poe to gape after him. She was shivering and utterly alone, surrounded by fussy vampires.

(((

Poe hardly enjoyed one of the few hot showers she had taken in fourteen years, which was a shame since the water didn’t smell like fishy sludge, nor was it discolored and grainy. The roomy bathroom filled with tiles, mosaics, and mirrors was completely lost upon her. She didn’t even appreciate the huge old-fashioned shower tub that surpassed the size of Goss’.

How could she when images of her friends’ demise flashed in her mind continuously?

“Awfully sorry, Sister and Goss,” she said out loud, “I let you both down so bad.”

Never had she unsuccessfully worked so hard to change her train of thought. If it hadn’t been for phobia and cowardice, her friends might still have been alive.

She didn’t deserve to cry, but tears of frustration flowed anyway.

In less than twenty minutes, Poe hopped out of the great tub with a pile of dripping, freshly laundered clothes. She had used her raw fist to beat blood and dirt 103

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from her shirt and pants. She did as Sainvire said and dabbed peroxide at the nail wound on her leg, red, puffy, and swollen from the shower. She hung her wet clothes on the side of the tub.

After attending to her thigh and various lacerations, Poe happened to look up and jumped back in fright. Poe realized that the peeping tom looking back was her own reflection. She wiped the thin film of steam clinging to the surface of the mirror.

An unrecognizable face stared back. Huge dark brown eyes, almost black with very long, straight lashes, blinked. Her wing-tip eyebrows were raised in shock. A pinkish-white scar running from mid-forehead down to the left underside of her eye marred her smooth skin. Her small nose had a cut on the bridge. On either side of her face were thin red scratches, probably from when she jumped through glass. Her naturally puffy lips were swollen even more from a vampire slap.

“Boy, I look awful.”

She probably deserved every scrape and bruise, too. After all, she was still alive. What a betrayal. The tiny mirror in her bunker only showed a third of her face at a time. This big contraption of a mirror was unwelcome because in her head she still had an image of herself having the ungainly body of a kid.

She could not stop, however, and unwrapped Sainvire’s lush green towel beginning to bleach from the peroxide. Her physique sure had changed. Ignoring the welts and darkening bruises on her rounded hips, arms, legs, and chest, Poe gawked at her body, temporarily forgetting about her friends.

“What in the world happened to me?” She had felt the changes, especially the curvy bumps, had even stared down at them on occasion, but she had never seen them reflected on a giant mirror like this before.

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Her full breasts with peach nipples scared the hell out of her. To think, she hadn’t even considered wearing a bra all this time. Embarrassing!

“No wonder Morales became all pervy whenever he saw me.” She made a mental note to scour the city for a brassier if she survived the night.

Her gaze traveled down her narrow waist to her stomach with barely a ghost of roundness. From there her eyes led southward, purposely skipping the vee of her privates, jumping straight to her curvilinear butt, then her slim but muscled thighs and calves. Poe squeezed her arm muscles, liking what she saw. Deep dimples appeared on either cheek.

“Good to see all the pull-ups, sit-ups, and muscle toning worked,” she said, pleased. “Anything to avoid being a ‘big head.’”

She had become obsessed after coming across a very disturbing book about kids locked up in the attic.

They had big heads but tiny bodies. Having little exercise and no sun exposure for years, the littlest kids became deformed. The eldest brother and sister began an incestual relationship. It was quite troubling. Never want that shit to happen to me, no siree.

Letting her wet black hair fall from beneath the towel, Poe was surprised to see how long it had grown.

She usually cut it about shoulder length, but her old scissors had clunked out on her months ago, and she was too lazy to look for another pair.

What’ll I wear?

Poe spied a huge black robe hung behind the door.

No doubt it was Sainvire’s. She put it on and went outside. On the big bed lay several floral dresses, short, medium, and long.

“Yeah, right,” Poe huffed. “Over my dead body.”

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frilly little things for functions and such. The pressure had become so bad that Poe begged for a whacking on the butt rather than endure the humiliation of wearing a dress.

Poe opened Sainvire’s closet and pondered the contents. She snatched a pair of black pants, a black tshirt, and some socks.

“He won’t miss these. He’s got lots.” Like Poe, Sainvire owned twenty pairs of the same outfits.

Taking the scissors from the medical tray, Poe planted herself on Sainvire’s bed and cut away at his clothes. When the pant legs, shirt sleeves, and belt were sheared to her satisfaction, Poe finally allowed herself to think about how the vampire would react.

She shrugged her shoulders, thinking that if she was going to croak tonight, might as well go pissing off the famous master of the city – in a pair of his pants.

(((

He wasn’t pissed; he was merely amused.

The young woman didn’t bother to conceal the newly filched bedroom weapons bulging in the pockets of her – his – butchered pants. One of his belts duly shortened cinched the ridiculously large pants about her tapered waist. The fabric crotch nearly reached her knees. Hooked onto the belt was a pair of scissors and three hastily sharpened lead pencils. His partly tucked black t-shirt hung loose and long on Poe’s frame.

The ludicrous pants made him shake his head. The bottom of the slacks, accidentally cut high-water length, gave Poe a Huck Finn look, especially since she walked barefoot and one pant leg was shorter than the other. He noticed something different about her. Poe’s once unfettered bosom was bound underneath the shirt.

He smiled grimly. So the girl finally noticed them.

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Sainvire watched her go down the third set of escalators with sharp vampire eyes from where he perched on a glass walkway smack in the middle of the library. He decided to let her explore before telling her what heinous part he had played in the deaths of Sister Ann and Goss.

(((

Poe imagined several scenarios of the master vampire mauling her to death upon discovering what she’d done to his pants. But after minutes of nasty internal debate, Poe finally decided to explore and perhaps find a way out. She donned her hastily fashioned weapons onto her belt. Her Adidas were soaking wet and made squeaky, squelchy sounds, so she took them off and left them to dry in the bathroom.

“Too slippery,” Poe muttered, kicking off the vampire’s huge socks once she’d reached the puppet theater. They made her clumsy on the tile and marble floors. Sainvire’s clothes smelled like Snuggles fabric softener, the same brand her dad had used for laundry.

Such familiar scents unnerved her. She shifted her attention to the problem at hand. Banking on her hunch that Sainvire had already claimed her for his supper, she prayed that the other vampires would leave her alone.

“I’m going to reconnoiter a bit, doggy. I can’t get us out of here without proper weapons,” she whispered to the battered dog still knocked out from drugs. “I don’t know what Sainvire’s game is, but I swear to you, I will knit his intestines into a sweater with number two pencils if it’s the last thing I do.”

Once satisfied that her dog was still asleep and breathing, Poe headed to the far end of the hall. The hall, cordoned off by a balcony, gave an awesome view 107

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below of two massive flights of escalators in between a sentry of towering columns thirty hands thick. Each floor led to different sections of the library.

“This place is smaller than I remember, but still massive,” she mused quietly.

Below, Poe spied vampires, humans, and a sprinkling of adrenaline-rushed halfdeads, the latter noticeable by their healthy complexion, performing different tasks. And that was what it looked to be, humans and undead of differing ethnicities going about their work. I thought minorities were turned into shit sweepers and laundry washers. One particular section, the Social Sciences floor, appeared extremely busy.

“Hello, what’s this?” she asked the post she was leaning on. Poe squinted, swearing that the floor had been converted into a laboratory. Despite the half-closed blinds, Poe could see microscopes and other lab equipment through the otherwise clear glass walls.

Fear choked her. Could it be a blood farm? Poe swallowed hard and turned away.

“I hope that place isn’t what I think it is,” she boiled.

She tiptoed with her bare feet to the first escalator, disregarding the stares of two vampires coming from the opposite direction and carrying bags filled with clear liquid.

“What?” she hissed at them.

Emboldened as they did not lift a finger to stop her or alert the vampire security, Poe descended the second set of escalators. She winced at the cold bite of the metal steps that aggravated the myriad bruises and cuts on her body. She had found purpose again. If the Social Sciences section was a cattle farm, then she would find a way to destroy it.

“Goss and Sister Ann would’ve wanted it this way,” she whispered.

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There certainly was a bustle of activity in there.

She hadn’t seen so many living people since she was eight, and she felt intimidated. Clutching the rosary and minuscule dart blower around her neck for courage, Poe entered the lab.

At first Poe’s uncanny appearance didn’t cause an iota of controversy. A couple of dozen vampires and humans went about their work, not even glancing at the barefoot, oddly dressed young woman scoping the spacious converted floor for any signs of cattle bloodletting. Instead, only live and undead creatures in white lab coats fiddling around with vials and serums casually greeted her.

“Hello. Hello to you, too. Oh hi,” she nodded at everyone who greeted her. Heartened, Poe ventured further inside the lab, occasionally reaching out and squeezing hanging plastic containers filled with thick clear liquid that seemed to be everywhere.

A vampire with atrophied veins on her face startled Poe by appearing electrically quick in front of her. The undead gave her a most benign, fanged smile and went about her work. Poe fretfully skipped to the next table that happened to be empty of supernatural beings. Some vamps were faster than others, but she preferred the slower ones.

Hanging on hooks was a dozen or so plastic containers of the clear, gel-like liquid. In the middle, though, a lone plastic bag containing red liquid looking suspiciously like blood stopped Poe in her tracks.

“Is that blood?” she muttered.

Disquieted, Poe reached for the bag for a closer look. Poe was heavy of hand given that she had never had the chance to outgrow the grabby reaction of a third grader. She did not gauge her strength and before she knew it, the bag of red liquid was off the hook. It 109

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slipped from her fingers like a fat balloon filled with water, crashing like a wave on the white marble floor.

A tepid, “Oh shit,” was all she could say. The design left on the floor would have made Jackson Pollock applaud from the grave. Poe couldn’t escape notice.

She was the center of attention, standing with her mouth open, eyes huge from guilt. She was crimson down to her toes. To her chagrin, the human contingent seemed more furious and outraged at the mess their fellow live person had made. Vampires had to restrain a particularly incensed man, cursing the newcomer cruelly, from rushing at her.

“You stupid little jerk!” the man with a goatee, a more annoying version of Jim Carrey, bellowed. “If you can’t keep your sticky fingers from touching lab work, you’re not welcome here!”

Like a goldfish ignominiously jumping out of its bowl onto a messy desk, Poe opened and shut her mouth several times before saying, “M-miserable leech.”

“What did you say, you dumb bit–”

A woman wearing pajamas with winged yo-yo designs abruptly stopped goatee man from finishing his thought. “Enough, Ambrose. It was an accident.”

“Yeah, but who’ll fill up another bag?” he spat.

“It’s too late to round up volunteers. Most everyone’s asleep. The little idiot will have to fill it up.”

Poe’s eyes widened then squinted narrowly like Dirty Harry himself. There’s no way any of these leeches, these traitors, are going to draw my blood without a fight! Poe unhooked the scissors from her belt, baring her teeth. She had a nasty feeling that jeet kune do would be needed this evening.

Like mist taking shape, a figure appeared next to her elbow. Poe pointed the scissors at the form, ready 110

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to stab the dull blade into its heart. The grin on the figure’s face, however, confused and disoriented her.

There stood Joseph, wearing nothing but the dastardly leather pants that seemed to be two sizes too small, shaking his head at her.

“Sorry. No one’s going to touch the Little Miss this evening. Boss’ orders,” he beamed, sounding extremely amused.

Ambrose, seething emphatically, barked, “Well I’m not giving any more blood tonight!”

“Hmm. But I don’t think we’ve met before,”

commented Joseph with a yogi smile.

“No, but I’ve seen you around,” Ambrose snorted disparagingly. “Can’t miss the glaring dragon on your naked back.”

“You’re new, I guess,” Joseph laughed with him, imitating Ambrose’s donkey snort. “Otherwise you’d know not to speak snarky to me. I’m the boss’ best pal.”

“So does that mean I can’t tell you to f*ck off?”

Ambrose retorted without fear.

“Sure you can, but I’m liable to misbehave and trip accidentally on your jugular.”

The pear-shaped woman in her early forties smoothed down her yo-yo pajama top and stared warily at Poe. “I’ll do it. I haven’t done it for a while anyway.”

“Thank you, Perla.” Joseph gave the woman’s shoulder a squeeze. “We really appreciate it.”

At this, Perla looked miffed and more than a little annoyed. She mussed the vampire’s soft, shoulder length hair and pushed him away. “You better get out of here, Joe, before I change my mind.” She looked at Poe again, this time with a hint of amusement. “And take the barefoot contessa with you before I let her stab Ambrose’s neck with those rickety scissors.”

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(((

“What a dick,” Poe mumbled as she left the lab.

But a vexing internal voice laughed pitilessly at her righteous anger. The voice grew in volume, contemptuously telling Poe, You’re only pissed at Ambrose because he acted more human than you.

Even if she didn’t want to admit it, Poe resented the older humans in the lab. They didn’t have to spend their lives underground and alone like they were already dead. They didn’t stutter or suffer countless phobias.

“Don’t feel sorry for yourself,” said Joseph, startling Poe. “You got away clean.”

“I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself!”

He threw her a knowing look to say, “Yeah, right.”

“They were jerks. That’s all.”

Joseph stayed silent, but a smile lingered and riled Poe’s injured pride. She kept her mouth shut, nevertheless, knowing she would seem petulant and childish in whatever form her answers took. She changed the subject.

“What were those clear liquid things?” she asked, not really expecting an answer from Sainvire’s buddy.

His half-naked, tattooed back and chest grated on her nerves. His bare feet reminded her too much of her Adidas-free feet, blood splotched and all. She especially couldn’t handle his leather pants; they were simply too Beach Blanket Bimbo with too much cowhide for her. She knew that leather was the way to go in vampire literature and movies, but it grossed the living crap out of her.

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“Genetically engineered plasma, saline, some funky fungal bacteria, a drop of blood, and a couple of other refined proteins I can’t pronounce.”

“What’re they for?”

“Grub.” Joseph let her pass before him up the escalator, following closely behind.

“What do you–”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” he interrupted, nodding his head and smiling politely. “I heard that you stutter. Why aren’t you now?”

“You don’t make me nervous. Your classy cow skin pants don’t scare me.”

Joseph guffawed heartily. It was no wonder Perla, the nice woman in yo-yo pajamas, treated him like a regular, likeable human. He knew how to take a slam.

Despite herself, Poe smiled at the vampire’s contagious laughter. She missed Sister Ann’s unholy laugh and Goss’ hilarious snorting giggle fits.

“Seriously, Joseph,” Poe said, catching the quick sobering of the merry vampire’s visage as if he expected another iffy question that wasn’t for him to answer. “Are you Chinese?”

“What makes you say that?” he asked, his eyes full of mischief.

“Well, the Chinese character tattooed on your left booby.” She pointed at the black, three-inch tattoo.

“And the dragon on your back.”

“Listen, the tattoo is on the left side of my chest.

Number two, thousands of non-Chinese got the same kind of tattoos before the Gray Arma-crackin’. It was a craze for a while. And C, and most importantly, never assume a person’s ethnic background in Los Angeles.

It’s rude and you’ll almost always guess wrong.” He smiled again, making Poe cringe even more. “I’m not Chinese. I’m Filipino American with some bastardized 113

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Spanish blood, I’m told. Any other questions about me, my body art, or racial make-up?”

“No. Just the meaning of the tattoo,” Poe said, thinking fast, hotly embarrassed.

“Well, I’m not really sure. I was told that it meant honor, but since I don’t read or speak Chinese, I can only hope the tattoo artist didn’t lie to me. He tattooed

‘moron fashion victim’ for all I know.”

Poe forced a laugh, feeling a little less stupid. The vampire lectured her but in a funny sort of way, just how Goss used to do. She understood that she was hugely ignorant about social subtleties since Goss and Sister Ann had pointed them out often enough. PC she was not.

“I like your name, Joseph,” Poe stated, surprised at what came out of her mouth.

“Oh yeah? Why?” he asked, arching an eyebrow as if expecting some more nipple references.

“Because you, um, have the same name as my brother.” Poe said, looking away.

Joseph grinned, showing extremely white teeth with sharpened fangs. “That’s funny. I may have had an annoying sister named Poe in my other life.”

Was that an extension of friendship, or merely another one of his jokes? No matter, for Poe knew that she was screwed at that point. This charming vampire before her would not die at her hands. Unless of course he tried to kill her.

“Oh, my mother was half-Filipino, you know,”

she told him proudly.

(((

Joseph, apparently, was her tour guide for the evening. He took her to the media room where quite a 114

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selection of movies was stashed. Several booths equipped with viewing equipment lined the walls.

As they walked down the lanes, Poe would point out the names of the movies currently playing. “That’s 400 Blows. Good movie. That’s Tarzan and His Mate, and that’s Blacula. Wow. El Norte. Good but a real downer.”

“I guess you’ve seen a lot of movies in your time, eh?”

“Nearly every day and every hour since I was eight,” said Poe. “That one’s Office Space and the next one over’s Dong Dong Silver.”

Joseph shook his head as if he’d misheard the girl.

“Dong Dong Silver?” He peeked over the last booth.

“Hey, mind getting your own booth, folks?” a vampire with his human honey complained. “Looking over our shoulder is not cool, man.”

Joseph pulled the squirming Poe out of the media room. Once outside he had to sit down and clutch his stomach for support to keep from toppling over. “Dong Dong Silver! Ha ha ha!”

Poe just stood there, offended and truly mortified.

She didn’t discriminate when it came to movies. She watched them all.

A now sober Joseph ended his outburst at the sight of Poe’s obvious embarrassment.

“Hope you’re hungry,” he said, changing the subject. He led her down a corridor into a huge kitchen with rows of tables and chairs.

She drank the sight of vampires, halfdeads, and humans supping together.

“So many people,” she said in a whisper.

Then her nostrils picked up the most magnificent smells she hadn’t sniffed in over a decade.

“A buffet,” she said with awe, ranting out names of nearly forgotten all-you-can eat restaurants.

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“Todai’s sushi and seafood grab-a-lots, Raji’s Indian foodtacular, Nyala’s Ethiopian smorgasbord…”

She didn’t remember being handed a tray. There on the slab of heated metal tins represented an amalgam of Angelino cultures. Pad thai, tamales, orange chicken, bibimbap, vegetable tikka masala, blintz, collard greens, kebobs, mashed potatoes, pork chops, sushi, teriyaki chicken, mac and cheese, and so much more! She stood where she was, staring as hungry humans passed her up.

After fourteen years of eating jellified canned food, she piled it on.

She scooped some rice and poured vegetable tikka masala sauce on it. Then some greens without bacon, mashed potatoes over jerk sauce, corn on the cob, stir fried veggies, eggplant curry, California rolls, and–

“Will you be needing another tray?” Sainvire asked, casually appearing out of nowhere, looking at the mound of food on the cattle runner’s plate and tray.

“Oh. Sorry.” Poe plopped down the rice pudding she was about to spoon into a bowl, embarrassed.

Beaming down at her, Sainvire ladled some of the pudding in the bowl on her tray.

“She’s suddenly the center of attention,” Joseph commented, looking about him. Vamps and humans alike had ceased supping to stare at the stranger and her mound of food.

“Don’t mind them,” Sainvire assured her. “They seem to have forgotten their manners.”

“It’s ’cause my tray looks like the mashed potato mountain in Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Poe said quietly, not in any way deterred from the meal.

“I forgot to tell you that you can come back for seconds. Or thirds,” Joseph said, his perpetual smile shining. He was holding orange juice and grape soda in his hands.

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The two vampires led an extremely crimson Poe to an empty table. Joseph pushed the juices toward the girl.

“Hope grape and orange is fine.”

Poe nodded her head and mumbled her appreciation. She didn’t immediately dig in to her plate, thinking that this might very well be her last supper before she became someone else’s dinner.

Sainvire and Joseph sitting across the table made Poe uncomfortable. It was as though they wanted to watch her gobble down the tower of tikka and laugh at her expense.

Bastards. They finally ignored her and started talking quietly about Trench and his angry goons.

Trying to remember proper fork and knife etiquette, Poe slowly dug in. The traffic cop in her head hollered for her to slow down. She slackened the pace for about a minute. Then it was suddenly about vengeance, like Lardass at the pie-eating contest in Stand by Me.

Unlike Lardass, however, Poe paused now and then to appreciate certain dishes by closing her eyes and memorizing the flavor and texture, for she knew it could be another decade before she tasted anything so yummy and warm.

With her eyes closed, she reveled in the teriyaki sauce over rice. There were simply no words to describe the explosion of flavor. Even the orange juice got a fist-slamming show of appreciation. In the midst of the pauses, grunts, and lip smacking, Poe was oblivious to her surroundings.

“I don’t think anyone’s given our cooking such a resounding compliment before,” Habib, one of the four chefs, commented while looking on.

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from the master vampire. To all this, Poe was blind, lost in gastronomical delights and remembrance of her mother and father who believed sampling different kinds of food to be a privilege.

To everyone’s surprise, Poe obliterated her plate, down to the last crust of bread that wiped the sauces clean. The tip of her nose dusted with sweat. Only when Poe swallowed the last spoonful of rice pudding did she become aware of the pain in her stomach.

Then there were hooting and clapping. The cafeteria audience had converted the meal into a cheesy reality show, the kind her parents didn’t let her watch because it brought out the worst traits in the contestants. The voice police returned and said, I told you so!

Her stomach, tremendously stretched by the amount of food shoveled in there, gave a kick. Flame-faced Poe had no recourse but to extend her hand to the four chefs that encircled her: Habib, Janice, Petra, and Ray.

“What a show, what a show,” random people said as they clapped her on the back. She didn’t appreciate the gesture at all. The movement jarred her belly, causing terrible discomfort.

And to think, she had even briefly considered Joseph as a sort of friend. Sick jerk. He laughed the loudest. Sainvire, having had enough himself, extended his arm to Poe to hoist her up. The girl merely threw him a piss-off look and rolled herself out of the chair.

The unnaturally large bulge of her stomach garnered another round of applause.

As she headed for the door, she ignored the laughter. On the right, Poe noticed a dreadlocked vampire sucking on a clear plastic bag bursting with thick fluid. The vampire winked at her, and the human girl sitting next to him clapped. This was such a 118

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strange place, definitely not how she expected a cattle farm to be.

(((

Poe shut out the conversation between Sainvire and Joseph as they walked ahead along the long corridor to the vestibule of the library. She could care less about them.

All those wasted years craving for human companionship. There were tons of humans, fifty at least in the cafeteria, and they treated her like a stain.

The lab folks wanted to beat the crap out of her, not to mention turn her into cattle.

“Bunch of leeches,” she gritted in a low voice.

“Try living on cans of discontinued slimy green beans for a month and see how you act in front of a buffet table.”

Who needed these obnoxious people? She certainly did not. It was no fun to be one of the Beverly Hillbillies when the jokes and jibes were thrown at her.

Shoot, Dad was a podiatrist, for crying out loud – a doctor! He knew everything about bunions, California Missions, and the Southern Pacific Railroad. Her mom was a famous local artist and a great reader who owned fourteen portable record players and two rare Victrolas, the kind with a crank and wood horn.

As for Poe, she learned how to read when she was scarcely three years old. She received honors and awards for speed-reading by the time she hit the fourth grade. Her mom always said she was one sharp chickie who might one day become a reporter or comic book writer. She could solve math problems with her right hand and compose an essay with the left.

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“Not many people can boast that they are ambidextrous, sweetie,” her mother often reminded her.

Now these so-called living, breathing people treated her like garbage and made her the brunt of their jokes.

“Screw them,” she fumed silently. “I’ll never lift a finger to help anyone. May they choke on all the good cafeteria food they chug down! And they can just–”

“Poe, are you ready for our little talk?” Sainvire asked, leading all three up the escalator and forcing Poe to pay attention.

“Yes,” she said huffily.

Joseph laughed, holding his muscled tummy.

“You’re not sore about the cafeteria incident, are you, Poe?”

Poe glared at him. How could this guy who shared her brother’s name laugh at her, too? Jerk! “What do you think?”

“I’ve never seen the cafeteria so lively. It’s usually like a morgue in there,” Joseph continued, unmindful of Poe’s wounded pride. “We have your appetite to thank for that.”

One more crack and she would truly embarrass herself. She was on the verge of throwing up and worse, crying. She looked away, pretending to scrutinize some paintings from the Trash Can movement of the early 20th century. She could care less about them.

Sainvire stopped smiling, noting the girl’s inability to take a joke. He motioned for his friend to stop the teasing.

“Joseph, it’s almost three in the morning. Poe and I have many things to discuss before dawn.”

Joseph sobered, understanding his flub. “Yes. I have to check on a couple things myself.” He tried to 120

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catch Poe’s eyes, but she wouldn’t look up to meet his.

“Goodnight, Poe. I enjoyed giving you the star tour.”

He gave a little nod to Sainvire and walked away.

Sainvire led Poe up the escalator, mindful of her space. Once they reached the domed lobby, the two headed wordlessly to Sainvire’s private rooms. Poe didn’t even ask. She just proceeded straight for the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She turned on the shower. What followed next was a tragedy. All the good food she’d imbibed gushed out in lumps as soon as she knelt on the tile floor before the toilet seat. Poe reasoned between heaves that the humans should have been cultured enough not to make a big deal of her gluttony.

At the fourth heave, Poe spewed out the very last of the good food. She cried silent but defiant tears. She grieved for Goss and Sister Ann, whose early deaths she could have prevented. She wept for the bruises and cuts she’d received that made her body sore and feverish. She stifled a sob as she remembered the stinging anger and ridicule from her own people. And she threw up the best damn food she’d had in years. In the end, she cried for one of the most god-awful days she’d ever had in her life.

Depleted, Poe blew her nose with toilet paper. She washed her puffy red face and tried to blink the redness away.

“Try to think of something happy, you big cry baby,” she admonished her reflection and started to look for floss. She didn’t want a repeat of a tooth pulling by a thick-fingered Goss using pliers meant for plumbing.

Brushed and flossed and eye veins shrunken to size, Poe felt confident enough to face the vampire.

She needed to be scary to get some respect. She imagined hacking the smiling head of Joseph, the 121

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leather-loving vampire sidekick, and puncturing Sainvire’s distracting orbs with sharpened pencils. If she really wanted to, she could kill all of them.

(((

Sainvire gingerly lifted the comforter under the sedated dog, hoping the poor mutt wouldn’t wake up.

As lightly as he could, he floated a foot above ground and glided back to his room. Penny twitched and whined as if stuck in a nightmare. Sainvire’s jaw set hard.

He hesitated before placing the dog down. “Which would you prefer, little Penny?” he asked softly.

At first he was going to set her down on the bed, but he thought Poe might decide to sleep with the dog and injure the mutt further with the movements of the soft mattress. No. Penny would have to sleep on the divan by the bed. Sainvire’s gestures bordered on non-movement. He made Penny’s descent onto the divan a breeze.

Poe was still in the bathroom, her grief not hidden from the vampire’s keen ears by the rush of shower water. At least she wasn’t vomiting anymore. Sainvire chose a leather armchair by the window to sit in and waited for her to come out.

“I’m hoping you’ll make our meeting less awkward,” he told the wiry haired dog.

He was correct on that score. Immediately after entering the room, the young woman kneeled by the dog and whispered, “I’ll get us out of here soon. Then we can start over.”

Occupied with Goss’ dog – hers now – Poe realized that Penny was by far more abused than she.

Penny’s beloved human companion, along with Legs, was gone. Poe forgot about the vampire momentarily 122

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as she tended to the dog. When she finally did look at him sitting as still as an empty church and watching her, Poe forced a look of nonchalance.

“Sorry I took so long,” Poe began. “I’m, um, not ready for real food, I guess.”

“I assure you, Poe, there’s no need to explain.” He motioned to a leather burgundy armchair across from him. “I quite understand. We really should begin our conversation about your friends since dawn is closely approaching.”

And so began a narrative that left Poe reeling in its intricacy.