That Which Bites

chapter 8–CHEEK AGAINST FIST



SAINVIRE DIDN’T RETURN THAT night or the following morning. For all Poe knew, the whole episode could have been an extremely detailed hallucination, if not for the musky, metallic smell he left behind on her pillows and the bullet shells by the trash pile. She could barely walk.

She wondered if she was in love since she was feeling woozy and sentimental. He made her legs weak. She blotted his face from her consciousness lest she lose her concentration. It’s not very smart to fall for a vampire.

Since she had several hours to kill, Poe decided to be useful. She collected the guns and ammo stashed by Goss on every floor of the hotel. The displaced residents of the library would need them.

“No use fighting the realm without guns,” she said to Penny whose eyes followed her.

Once a healthy mound of firepower appeared on the floor, she tried being handy with a hammer and nails. Constructing a wheeled cart to attach to the back of her bicycle wasn’t as easy as she had imagined. The only wheels to be found were from thick leather armchairs from the sixties. They were round novelty items that spun all over the place. She had no choice, however, because a large bundle of M-16 rifles, 224

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shotguns, and other long-bodied weaponry already burdened the passenger seat of her bicycle.

After twenty minutes of sketching, she came up with the idea of replacing the pulley rope with wood beams and plywood to fit the crate at the back of the bicycle. The design took another hour to construct.

When put to the test, the pathetic looking contraption worked, but it slid sideways, sometimes unbalancing the bicycle.

“Miserable piece of shit!” Poe yelled, stopping herself from kicking the eyesore. Poe didn’t care anymore, for she’d just about had it. Besides, she was running late. Cursing, she changed into her Sonic Youth t-shirt and doused herself generously with garlic water until she reeked like chicken adobo. She slammed the lid upon the crate and hammered nails with one resonant hit.

“I want my Vespa back!” she screamed before pushing off to her destination.

(((

It was a nice, clear afternoon despite the trash-strewn streets blocked by rusted automobiles and nervous, salivating dogs rummaging for food. Even sickly brown birds and plentiful pigeons sunned themselves on electric wires, singing their approval with the crystal blue sky in the background.

“Disgusting, diseased birds!” grunted Poe, pedaling erratically beneath them. She could have cared less about the brightness of the afternoon.

She swerved left-right-left, not because of road debris, but because of the crate the bicycle was pulling.

It was dancing to the tune of the young woman’s cursing.

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Maybe they sensed her frustration and helplessness, but hungry dogs circled closer to the old Schwinn, hoping to afford a nip or two of Poe’s flesh as punishment for wandering into their territory. Too bad for them. Their drooling faces collided with the steel-tipped combat boots that covered her legs almost to the knees beneath her army pants.

“That’s for even trying,” Poe said gratingly as she kicked at a hairless dog.

Cool didn’t always spell comfort, durability, or for that matter, maneuverability. Damn all Schwinns to hell! Why couldn’t I find a better bike?

Poe wiped her brow, cursing herself for wearing a lightweight pea coat and a thick bulletproof vest over her t-shirt. The coat might have been light, but it was still black, absorbing the wrath of the sun and making her sweat like Albert Brooks in Broadcast News.

There was no time to stop and take off the damn coat or deal with the fly-ridden dogs that still followed her tracks. She was half an hour late.

The designated place was on the south side of downtown, a truly depraved area full of hirsute palm trees in need of a shave from a generation of inattention. Rats made the California trademark their nest. Even the ficus and jacaranda trees left uncut loomed over the street, creating an arbor of drooping leaves and bark so thick that they blocked out most of the sun.

Back in the day, that part of the city housed warehouses filled with bleak, underpaid workers, smog-spewing industry, drug addicts, hookers, and alcoholics. They also sheltered the ballsiest giant rats ever to be found. Twenty or thirty of them had chased Poe during one of her searches years ago for an alternative home. The rodents changed her mind about 226

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living there for they were ten times the size of any regular city rat she had ever seen.

She didn’t exactly feel tingly and safe riding the worthless, heavy bike and its load to the center of rat hell. Her sore muscles were torturous as the sharp debris on the road prevented her from jetting out of there, and she still had about half a mile to go.

Then there was Sainvire’s naked body. She’d always thought it was bullshit for women in books and films to throw themselves at their lover’s mercy with no mind of their own beyond pleasure. To this, she muttered, “Still do. Sex is wonderful and exploding and all that, but after the last convulsion, life crashes to normal again. No big whoop. Sainvire would have a hell of a time convincing me to wear spiked heels and a cat outfit or to whack somebody for him.”

She conjured up her West L.A. home in her mind, ten minutes from the Santa Monica beach. “It’s time for me to go home. I’ve got Penny to think about.

Sainvire will never leave his people, especially after Sister Ann and Goss.”

Her concentration on the task at hand and the image of blue waves crashing on the beach paid off.

Only forty-eight minutes late. Two more hours until sundown. She parked the bicycle near 16th and Olive and waited for an escort to appear and direct her to the chosen warehouse.

But no one did. She only encountered a welcoming committee of hissing rats the size of armadillos, utterly unafraid of anyone, least of all her.

“Good ratties. Go on with your business and pay me no mind.”

A contingent seemed to be headed somewhere more satisfying than Poe’s meager flesh. Ordinarily she would have let out a sigh of relief, but not this time.

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“Something’s wrong,” Poe said quietly, her heart thumping.

Outnumbering her a thousand to one, the rats should have attacked. Poe readied her Kalashnikov assault rifle Sainvire had left for her. Smaller than its more famous counterpart, the AK-47, the rifle was outfitted with a PBS silent fire device and a BS-1

underbarrel grenade launcher.

She took a deep breath and followed the hustling rats that surpassed her thighs in size. “Thanks, Sister, for insisting I wear steel-tipped boots for special occasions.”

The stench of rotting meat, garbage, rat droppings, and something metallic and fresh assaulted her nostrils.

She made an effort not to be sick as she stepped on bullet-sized rat shit that blanketed the ground. She shivered at the thought that she had actually considered hiding out in this rat-infested part of town. I would’ve woken up a skeleton.

The cavalcade of giant rodents led her deeper into warehouse row. The weight of the ammunition in her pack combined with her muscle aches and intense dislike of rats heightened her already tense nerves.

Someone screamed, smacking fear into Poe. Taking a deep gulp of air, she ran toward the shouting without heeding the rat tail, snout, and bodies she squished.

“Please let the screaming come from rats getting stepped on,” she prayed to her patron saints, Bruce, Ali, and Xena.

An assembly of rats was sniffing around a rusty blue warehouse. They appeared angry for being shut out of the fun inside. When she got close enough she heard the sounds of objects or possibly bodies getting hurled against metal walls.

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“Please, don’t do this,” a woman’s raspy voice begged from inside, her crying pitiful. Please let Sainvire and Joseph be safe, prayed Poe.

The sliding metal door wouldn’t budge. It was locked from within. Desperate for a way in, Poe ran around the compound in search of a window. She wasted no time climbing a rickety pile of scrap metal and moldy wood beams to reach a tiny window twelve feet off the ground. Twice she nearly toppled from the unstable mound of debris but stabilized herself by holding onto corrugated grooves of the warehouse walls for support. She didn’t lose a second shattering the opaque glass with the butt of her Kalashnikov until it was shard-free enough to crawl through.

Poe fell onto a pile of crates, not caring if her legs broke. She rolled to the ground and prepared to join the fight.

The weak light inside the warehouse made Poe pause until her eyes warmed up to the dimness. When they finally adjusted, she saw corpses with their eyes wide open, crumpled on the sticky floor littered with Scrabble tiles, playing cards, and Monopoly money.

“Poe!” a woman hoarsely said with relief.

“Samantha?” Poe asked, confused. The nurse she’d slugged for patching up her dog sat on the lap of an extremely ancient vampire with brown walrus teeth.

His nicotine-stained hand was worming its way to Sam’s crotch.

Three other vamps just as old smoking Cubano cigars and holding up cards turned their creaky heads her way. An undead in a burgundy tuxedo was sucking dry the neck of his win. With a burp that made his fellow rat packs chuckle, he flung the drained body against the steel walls. Crooked fangs dripping, the dead turned his attention to Poe with a smug look on his face. “And what do we have here?”

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Samantha, quivering, was completely naked with the exception of a pair of yellow Chuck Taylor Converse shoes. Poe noticed similarly unclad cattle and humans standing behind each poker player. “What the heck is going on?” she asked. “What kind of meeting is this?”

“Ah, another fresh vein,” a rather rotund dead commented. He looked as though he’d just inhaled twenty Wimpy burgers. “This is our lucky year. There ought to be more vampire wars. We’ll have more exciting morsels to ante.”

“Ante? You’re using humans as gambling chips?”

Poe asked with incredulity.

The whole table chortled.

“It’s not funny, f*ckers!”

“Please, the language,” the more waifish of the four protested. “This is a gentleman’s game designed to distract from the boredom of living forever. And you dare bother us?”

Poe bit her lower lip in contemplation. She answered, “Yeah. I guess I’m here to eke something out.”

From her wrist, she slid a throwing knife slick with garlic oil between her fingers. In the bat of an eyelid, she hurled the four-inch Bo-Kri into the air. It squared the skinny vamp in the left eyeball. The shit really hit the fan then.

“Samantha, duck!” Poe yelled, letting the Kalashnikov dangle to her side. She summoned all hopes of accuracy to avoid striking cattle or the woman. The moment the blonde in her mid-thirties dove for the crap-encrusted floor, Poe took her first shot at the psycho-perv, catching him dead center in the heart.

“Get down, cattle!” she screamed, frustrated that two of the Ancients had time to scramble free because 230

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she hadn’t taken the shot . I could kill those bovine piss-shots myself!

Poe tossed Samantha her extra gun and went in search of the two remaining vampires in the cavernous building. For being so old, they can sure move fast.

They were so fast that she did not see one of them sneak up behind her.

A vampire hurled her like a sack of potatoes at the interior wall. Her already severed and stitched ear took the brunt of the blow to the side of the head. The moment she landed on a pile of scattered mah jong chips, she was yet again hauled by her coat and hair and tossed headfirst by a squat Ancient with a missing fang.

“You’re that girl we’ve been hearing about, aren’t you?” said One Fang. “The one who’s thirty but’s never been bit.”

Poe yelped, already imagining the ridged metal on her face. She tried reaching for one of her guns, but her coat pinned her arms. Without meaning to, Poe cringed and made herself small in expectation of the impact, allowing herself to slip from the big pea coat and fall to the sticky floor with a groan. Better fall than wall, thought Poe, and grabbing her Kalashnikov, sprayed the ancient thug with blessed bullets.

“I’m only twenty-two, you dipshit!” she coughed, truly insulted.

Her ear was bleeding. The stitched lobe had dislodged again. Poe’s hand shook from being so cursedly angry. Before she could scramble to her feet, Burgundy Tux Vamp flew straight at her and grabbed her ponytail.

“I don’t care who you are,” the debonair undead spit with venom. “You killed my friends. It’s hard enough to live when packaged blood is everyday gruel.

Now you’ve left me without my poker chums.”

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Airborne from a fistful of her hair, Poe struggled to pry the vampire’s fingers. Her scalp was screaming to be left alone. “Oh boo hoo already,” she cried. “If you’re so bored and lonely, why don’t you let me kill you?”

The vampire growled, his jowls salivating. His already long incisors shot up another inch. “I’ll rape you, desecrate your body, then drink you until you’re one of them,” he said as he positioned Poe so she could see a view of the naked cattle standing around like animals, waiting to be turned into patties. “I’ll turn you into my personal cow.”

Feeling ill, Poe took out a butterfly knife from her pocket and flipped it into position. With one stroke, she cut off her ponytail. She made sure she had a view of the vampire as she fell fifteen feet to the crud-softened flooring. With hate, she plugged the undead until hot shells and vampire entrails decorated the warehouse, all before her back hit solid ground.

She didn’t move. The vampire’s body fell entirely lifeless by her feet. Tearing up, she kicked the cadaver away from her. “That’s for even mentioning the word

‘rape’ to me, you piece of shit!” She kicked him again for good measure. “And that’s for nearly breaking my spine.”

She remained on her back and rubbed her burning scalp. She kept her stunned position even when Sam put a bullet through the vamp with Poe’s knife in his eye. Her ponytail lay by her left hand. The sight angered her.

“Are you okay, Poe?” asked an exceptionally bruised Samantha who put on her pea coat without asking.

“My back is shot,” Poe sniffed. “And I’m lying in squishy shit, but I’m all good. You?”

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She extended a hand with a chipped coral manicure and helped Poe to her feet. “Oh, you know. I got beaten up again. That’s my lot in life.”

“Listen, I’ve been meaning to apologize.”

“Rescuing me is better than an apology,” said Sam, wiping her snot on the coat sleeve. “At least I wasn’t raped by corpses.”

“Yeah, that’s something.”

(((

“We’ve got to find the others,” said Samantha who dressed the three bitten, drooling humans with the loud clothing of the fanged departed. “I don’t know where to go. I was taken before one of our people could tell me anything.”

Poe sighed, seething inside. “We can’t do anything now. You’ll all have to stay at the Japanese American Museum while I track down Sainvire.”

Joseph and Sainvire led me into a trap. I’m going to blow some kneecaps, Samuel Jackson-style.

“I thought gambling dens were myths,” Samantha said softy.

Poe kept her mouth shut. She wanted to cry and bludgeon Sainvire to pomegranate pulp. He f*cked her a third time knowing she was going to be beaten and raped by Ancients the next day. “Can’t wait until we see each other again, dick. My lower back for your gullet,” she murmured quietly, looking surreptitiously from under her straight lashes at each of the surviving faces behind her. The two women and a white-haired man walked as quickly as their addled minds would allow, waddling in oversized shoes borrowed from the dead.

At their side, Samantha rode the wobbly bicycle bearing the crate of guns and ammo. She looked like 233

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Tippi Hedren with scattered hair. The woman had outfitted herself with the works: a rifle and handguns galore.

Poe’s ear had stopped bleeding, and the tiny earlobe flap held on to dear life by a stitch. Definitely no peridot earrings for me. Sister Ann had said not to trust anyone. I should’ve followed the nun’s advice.

She thought of Sainvire’s unforgettable naked body and shuddered.

“You know what I’m gonna do, Samantha?” Poe said then interrupted the woman before she could speak. “I’m gonna rid this town of vampires. I’ll just kill them all. Before, my heart wasn’t one hundred percent into vampire killing and cattle running. Now it is.”

“You can’t mean that,” said Samantha, who held back on pedaling a notch. “You can’t seriously put Kaleb and his people in the same league as Trench and Gruman Raspair.”

“Sure I can. Wholeheartedly.”

“But–”

“But nothing. They all gotta go so humanity can be free again.” She saw the disbelief in the pretty woman’s face and raised her hand. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. I gotta think about fixing up homemade explosives. If I can find Goss’ instructions, that is.”

Poe caught movement in the periphery of her eye.

She recognized the hip-heavy woman waving at them as one of Sainvire’s cronies.

Skidding to a halt, Sam got off and let the bike fall where it stood. “Veronica! Don’t tell me the gang’s all here.”

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know you made it safe, Sam. So like what happened to you? You look like Joseph’s dead toe nail.”

“Long story. Can’t get into it now. We’ve got to let these guys rest.”

“Yeah, well, they can sit in the shade over there.

Sainvire told me to haul her ass to the meeting, like over an hour ago,” Veronica said, clearly displeased.

“To finish me off?” Poe threw out, equally annoyed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the forty-year-old teenager said, zigzaging her neck like a turkey with attitude. “The meeting’s started. Couldn’t wait for you any more.”

“What meeting?” Poe asked incredulously.

The brunette sighed in frustration and gave Poe a don’t-play-dumb look. “Give me a break and just follow me in. I’ve been standing here for like ages and I’m missing out!”

Poe didn’t budge. She wasn’t going anywhere.

Surely there was a second trap laid out for her in case she survived the first. F*ck that.

“Is Sainvire at the meeting?”

“Of course he is,” the middle-age valley girl said as she rolled her eyes. “Can we go now?”

“No,” Poe answered quietly but firmly.

“What?”

“No.”

“Geez, you’re one annoying little–” The woman, red from too much sun exposure, stopped herself from blowing up. “Kaleb said not to come back inside unless I bring you with me, so why don’t you be a good little girl and follow me, huh?”

Poe shook her head, looking highly peeved at the patronizing woman who dared refer to her as “little”

when she herself was short. “Why don’t you tell Sainvire to come out here and get me himself?”

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“But he’s in the middle of the conference.

There’re over a hundred people in there.”

“Look at my face,” Poe said.

“What about your face?” the woman demanded, furious. Her eyes lingered upon Poe’s scar and earlobe.

“Do I look like I care?” Poe raised an eyebrow for emphasis.

“Just do as she says, Veronica,” Samantha nervously suggested.

Narrow-eyed, Veronica screamed, “Fine! And your ear is f*cking gross!”

Poe was relieved to see the prissy brunette leave her sight. A few more seconds and her index finger would have ended all diplomacy. Just to make herself feel better, Poe fiddled with the AKS-74U, releasing its magazine only to push it back in place. She slowly checked the vicinity for possible snipers. The surrounding buildings had too many perfect hiding places. Poe shrugged her shoulders and sat down on the broken concrete steps of a forgotten park. She ignored Samantha who tried to speak with her.

Five minutes was all it took for him to exit from a high-rise. The master vampire had no discernible weapons, but then again, his long nails were all he needed. He reached the middle of the road before Poe ordered him to stop.

“Where were you, Poe?” he asked, clearly incensed. “Do you realize how much time we’ve wasted waiting for you? Now we’re racing against the impending darkness, and on top of that you pulled me out of the–”

“F*ck you, culo bastard,” Poe said coldly.

“If you’re going to be childish about what happened–”

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Poe almost snarled before she shot the master vampire in the gullet, but short of finishing his ability to speak.

Sainvire fell on his back, clutching at the wound on the right side of his neck. He looked up at Poe who now stood over him with a grim yet triumphant look on her face. Despite the pain he noticed the beaten condition of the girl for the first time.

“Poe? What?” he croaked his gray eyes aghast.

“So you’re not only a f*cking murdering slimeball with killer claws, but you’re also an actor, too,” she chortled. “Can’t blame you there since we’re a skip from Hollywood, eh?” She shot his left kneecap.

Murky liquid oozed. She had to admit that shooting the vampire of her dreams gave her a satisfaction beyond therapeutic.

Amidst Sainvire’s painful coughing and Samantha’s hysterical yelling, Poe found herself encircled by over fifty humans, halfdeads, and vampires. She pointed the Kalashnikov at Sainvire’s head.

“If you want to see this kintama’s basketball explode, creep closer,” Poe warned after she saw vampires, including Maple and Joseph, try to sneak around her blind side. To illustrate her point, Poe aimed at Sainvire’s right kidney and fired. The master vampire yelped and writhed in pain in the middle of the street.

“Don’t do anything!” Perla screamed to the others. “Get back over here where she can see us.” She waved her hands to mark the line of retreat. “Okay, Poe. Don’t shoot Kaleb anymore.” Pushing the panic from her voice, Perla asked, “What’s this all about?

What has Kaleb done?”

“If you really don’t know, Perla, then you’re lucky. But jerkweed here,” she began, gesturing at the 237

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master vampire on the ground. “And joga- face Joseph there…” On cue, she shot the tattooed vampire in the groin to illustrate her point. To say the least, the crowd unleashed a chorus of screams. “They both deserve to die.” The wailing that came from the easygoing vampire almost drowned out all the shocked voices.

“Stop! Poe, I beg you,” Maple pleaded, her voice shaking but determined. The lines around her face looked more prominent in the sun, making her look years older than forty-seven as she shielded Joseph with her bulky body. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why am I doing this, Maple?” Poe spat. “Good to know you’re ignorant of the whole affair because I really liked you.”

Sainvire tried to speak, but a steel-tipped boot in his mouth shut him up. “This–” she kicked Sainvire’s busted kneecap. “This pendejo and his little hine daikon buddy sent me to a warehouse full of ancient cocksuckers to be done in.” Foul words in multiple languages flooded her mind. She booted him in the injured kidney for good measure.

Sainvire, holding his side, tried to sit up and explain. “No!” he gurgled in an anguish-filled voice.

“Not true!”

“Joseph there told me to go to 16th and Olive. And who do I see but Samantha and the cattle getting anted around like Frank Sinatra’s broads.”

Joseph, having a difficult time, sat up with the help of Maple and held on to his oozing privates. “I said, I said 6th and Olive, not 16th and–” Joseph collapsed back on the ground, cupping what was left of his manhood, apparently not as immune to blessed bullets as Sainvire.

“No, f*cker. You told me 16th and–”

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said, “This was the place, Julia. No one tried to shop you.” Poe toppled and yelped in pain, cursing like a salt dog. Before her eyes, the bullets lodged in Sainvire’s body popped out like wine corks as he stood. Poe fired at the master vampire’s face, but a fleet and angry Sainvire dodged the bullet.

She made as if she would shoot his face again, but she aimed instead at his other kneecap, eliciting a livid scream from her lover of one day. She rolled back to her feet and fired at the swarm of vampires and halfdeads that ran and flew her way. Completely pinned down, Poe let out a stream of bullets that hit two of Sainvire’s people before sharp claws sliced the rifle into fragments.

Screaming, “I’m Billy Jack, goddamnit!” as loudly as she could, Poe reached for the pair of Glocks from her holster. One particularly malodorous vampire who tried to nip at her neck tackled her, but Poe, so high on adrenaline that she literally drooled, shot the creature’s balls off. From the ground, Poe did a 360-degree spin upon her elbow while shooting a circle of bullets into the mob, like a violent breakdancer.

Only, certain vampires proved too quick for her.

They started piling their massive bodies on top of hers like a skinny wrestler’s worst nightmare.

“Enough!” Sainvire’s voice boomed. “Let her up.”

He sneered, “If she tries to escape, you have my permission to have her for a snack. You five, guard her. Everyone else back inside the tower. We need to finish this. Gunfire is nothing new to this area, so we’ve got some time.”

The bodies of the folks she killed were left breezily on the street beneath the canopy of wisterias.

Before going in, Sainvire gave Poe a look that bordered more on pity than spite. She flipped him off with a smile for his condescension.

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“Stupid bastard, giving me that look,” she yelled, relishing the fact that he hobbled.

With four burly vampires and a halfdead guarding her, there was no need to be tied up. “Great, one of them’s the three-pound pressure guy,” she muttered.

She couldn’t forget a bitter face like Rufus’, particularly since she had yanked off one of his ears.

Capoeira guy!

Poe had a feeling that the guards wanted her to attempt to escape so they could avenge their dead comrades without repercussion. Like a good little kid, Poe sat down on the pavement and dabbed her bleeding thigh with the hem of her t-shirt. Unfortunately, Rufus wouldn’t have any of that good behavior garbage.

“Get on your feet, girl,” he ordered with a twinkle in his eyes. To avoid a confrontation that would most likely lead to her death, Poe obeyed. She couldn’t stand to have another Capoeira moment with skewered thighs.

“That’s a good girl,” he mocked. The four other vampires smirked. She definitely wasn’t going to get any help from those goons.

Her head came exactly up to the muscular halfdead’s chin. She met his burning stare with a sweet look of her own, and Rufus frowned. Poe couldn’t help it. She smiled. Big mistake.

“Ya think that’s funny do ya?” As fast as a halfdead could, Poe felt rather than saw a sharp, staggering slap from Rufus. Poe had to shake her head to clear the circling birds and orient herself before returning with a whopping slap of her own, which only annoyed the martial artist more.

He encircled her slim neck with one hand, thick fingers squeezing the breath out of her. His other hand tugged maliciously on the dangling lobe of her left ear.

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Poe was too shocked at the deed that all she could do was watch Rufus inspect the piece of meat like it was candy corn made of gold. He pulled out the stitches then winked at Poe. Gloatingly he popped the piece of ear into his mouth. Rufus chewed the meat as if it was the best piece of sushi he’d ever tasted and swallowed orgasmically.

“Now we’re even,” he said friendly-like and mussed her head. He joined the four chuckling vampires.

Still in shock and terribly grossed out, Poe huddled down on the pavement, touching her disfigured ear. For some strange reason, she didn’t feel like murdering the halfdead. She could have easily killed him with the gun in her boot, but she stayed her hand. Karma’s a bitch. At least it wasn’t my entire ear, she thought. But why did he have to eat it like sashimi?

While stunned, she was approached by Perla who handed her a bottle of water. The head scientist, just for the meeting, wore a fancy Cookie Monster pajama ensemble, clashing with her unhappy countenance. She swept the fallen bodies on the street with her eyes, swiftly blinking them away. They were her friends.

“If you have the ear skin somewhere, I could sew it back for you,” she offered, sitting companionably next to Poe. Her voice sounded edgy with forced cheerfulness.

Poe couldn’t help it. She looked at the grinning face of Rufus before answering in the negative.

“Oh well. You’ll just have to be without it.”

“Guess so,” was all she said, not feeling particularly chatty.

Perla tapped anxious fingers on her knee, fretting how to start. How could she begin to explain the complicated to a young woman so sheltered and ignorant? That the world was not black and white? The 241

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promise of a society without enslavement was so close at hand, she could taste its vinegary assurance. With a silent prayer, she rushed headlong.

“Poe, I know we haven’t known each other long enough for you to trust me, but believe me when I tell you that Kaleb did not–”

“Perla, you’re a nice woman,” Poe interrupted.

“You washed my clothes. But you don’t know shi…

anything about what happened. If you’re here to convince me that your boss is a saint, then please take your water bottle and go back to your little jamboree.”

“Fine. I won’t talk about him,” she said, giving Poe a tight smile. “Did I ever tell you how Maple and I met?”

Poe wanted so much to roll her eyes and say, “Of course not, you dumbshit,” but didn’t. She had respect for the woman and for that matter, Maple herself. In deference, Poe shook her head no.

“Maple was my mechanic for five years before she got the courage to ask me out. I was much younger then her so she was quite reluctant.” Perla sighed. “I said yes, of course. She was shy, but she wasn’t intimidated by the fact that I was a geneticist and making three times her salary.”

Perla looked across the street at a giant faded billboard of Angelyne, the blonde breast implant icon of Hollywood, wearing a skimpy pink ensemble even in her fifties. Her face was pulled so tight that her eyes were slits. “She was proud of what I did. And I was proud of her.”

Even though Poe was deathly engrossed, a nagging voice asked why Perla was telling Poe her life story. In order to move Perla along, she let out a rude sigh of boredom. But the scientist continued anyway.

“I found my soul mate.” Her brows wrinkled.

“Then the gray matter came and killed almost 242

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everyone. I was safe in an underground lab Kaleb set up for us while Maple was at home, dying.” She cracked her fingers nervously. “I was on the phone with her, listening as her lungs filled with fluid on the second day of the nightmare.”

Poe couldn’t keep the look of disinterest on her face. She was hooked.

“Kaleb held my hand through the horror, comforting me. Then I asked him to do me the greatest favor in the history of favors.” She looked at Poe. “I asked him to turn Maple into a vampire.”

She bit her lower lip. “With much trepidation because he didn’t approve of siring new undead, Kaleb sought out Maple and braved being out among the gray matter. You see, nobody knew anything about the poison. I guess we still don’t. At the time, we had no clue that vampires were immune to the gray.”

Poe scrunched up her face and looked away. It was about Sainvire again.

“I can’t trash the man who saved the love of my life from certain death.”

“Maybe he’s nice to you, Perla, because he’s your friend. Or maybe because he needed you to make him into a superhuman vampire with exceptional skills and a tan.” Poe gritted her teeth. “But folks like me and the people that died today are nothing but pawns in a torrid game of downtown chess.”

“I’ll never believe that. He happened to confide in me when he returned from your bunker,” Perla stated matter-of-factly. “He has feelings for you.”

“Who gives a shit? I care more about my sneakers than him. I only used him for his body,” Poe stated coldly, seething with shame about her business being shared with other people. “And you don’t have to lie for him.”

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“I wouldn’t lie,” Perla said, looking angry for the first time. “Don’t you think you could‘ve gotten the numbers wrong? I mean six and sixteen in the middle of a deafening gun battle?”

“I have a photographic memory, even with my stupid stuttering,” she lied. She really didn’t know anymore if Joseph had said six or sixteen anymore. But she wasn’t about to admit that. In a perfect world, vampire hunters don’t make mistakes.

Perla sighed. “That area is known as a free zone where anything goes. It’s not uncommon for some daring Ancients, vampires, and halfdeads bored of hotels and clubs to use the warehouses around there to gamble or play games with like-minded friends.

Torture, sex games, what have you are commonplace there.”

Poe abruptly stood up and limped to her bicycle.

The image of scattered playing cards and chess pawns on the sticky floor of the warehouse flashed in her mind. I f*cked up something big.

The five goons Sainvire selected as guards surrounded her. She had a mini-Glock tucked in her boot and a Walther PPK in the Velcro side pocket of her pants. She would use them if she had to.

“Let her go,” Perla ordered Rufus and the four vampires. “And give her back her guns. We don’t want anything to happen to her on her way home.”

Reluctantly the five edged away from the bicycle.

Rufus, a true sport now that he was happily digesting her ear, saluted her goodbye. Poe threw him a grim smile then nodded to Perla. She felt ill and slightly churlish. She was not mature enough to admit a possible mistake.

“Just remember that your boss was the mastermind behind cattle milking to feed the L.A.

vampire population.” Poe detached the crate of 244

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weapons and hopped on the Schwinn, but still trained her cold eyes on Perla. “Let your scientific mind stew over that fact.”

With those parting words, Poe pedaled away, stinking like rat pellets and missing an earlobe. Shaken more than she would admit, Perla composed herself and didn’t join the meeting until the girl was out of sight.