Bite Me (22 page)

“Go to the back of the room, Elijah. I have something I need you to do.”

The vampire snarled at her.

“Okey dokey,” she said, and she put on her sunglasses, placed Foo’s laser against the glass, and promptly blasted Elijah’s right ear into ash.

He roared at her.

“Oh, I know that had to hurt. Hear that high whining sound, Elijah. That’s the laser recharging. Takes about a minute. When it’s done I’m going to burn off your willie unless you get your ancient ass to the back of the cell.” She smiled.

“Shoots, brah, she a cold heart bitch don’t you know. You outta-shoulda do what she say, yeah?”

The old vampire backed through the inside door, snarling, and Kona worked the switch, sealing it. Then he opened the heavy outer hatch.

Jody placed the vacuum vials in the chamber, then said, “Okay, Elijah, I need you to fill these with that sweet, first-generation vampire blood.”

They sealed the outer hatch, and Elijah snarled and resisted, but after having his other ear burned off, relented. Twenty minutes later Jody was holding the four vials of Elijah’s blood and Elijah was lapping two quarts of tuna blood out of a stainless-steel bowl.

“He be all right,” Kona said. “Dem ear heal up in minutes and he be back in the mystic fo’ weeks.”

“And how long to get the rest of the art supplies onto the
Raven
?” she asked.

“It’s all on board, mistress.”

“Then cast off, Cap’n.”

“Aye, aye, mistress.”

Jody turned to Okata, who had stood silently, his eyes wide, watching the whole scene.

“These are for you,” she said, holding out the vials. “I’ll help you. I hope you like night scenes. You’re going to have a lot of prints to make. But you’ll have time.”

“Okay,” said the swordsman, with a smile.

M
y heady powers of the night are gone, my manga-haired love monkey with a most fly ride is gone, even my tail is gone—worst of all, the Countess is gone. We watched her sail off just before dawn, the Rastafarian imbecile piloting the
Raven
out past Alcatraz as we stood there on the dock.

Then Rivera and Cavuto came blazing up in their shit-brown cop-mobile and jumped out of the car, all “We have totally watched a number of cop shows and now know how to look urgent.”

And Cavuto is all, “Don’t even move, missy.” And he’s holding a Super Soaker again. This time, a yellow one.

And Rivera is all creeping up the other side of the dock, as if we don’t see him, even though the dock is only
like fifteen feet wide and there’s no cover and it’s almost dawn.

And Tommy’s like, “You guys, I should probably explain.”

But before he can say anything else, I jump up and I’m all, “Rawr,” at them, coming down with total monster claw hands and scary face.

And they fire up their sun jackets and totally open up on Tommy and me with the Super Soakers, until we are wet and laughing so hard that we’re falling down on each other. And Marvin jumps out of the car window and runs over to us all doggie “whaaaa?” face, because he doesn’t see a lot of laughing in the cadaver dog business.

And Rivera looks at Cavuto, then turns off his sun jacket, and Cavuto turns off his, then holds his squirt gun like it’s just turned into a giant yellow turd. And he’s all, “Well, fuck.”

And I’m all, “Oh ass bear, you make me wet,” which totally made us giggle some more, and Marvin ran over and started licking my face, which made me laugh even more, until finally Rivera pulled out his handcuffs and we stopped laughing.

So we explained about the old vamps being dead and how they had gotten rid of all the kitty vamps and Chet, and how everyone else had been changed back like us, and it was all good so they just needed to chill the fuck out.

And Rivera’s all, “What about the black ship?”

And we’re like, “It was owned by this eccentric bazil-
lionaire, and the vamps had taken it over, but now that they were dead he was going home.”

And Rivera was all, “But the Emperor said—”

And I’m all, “Bitch, please. The Emperor of San Francisco, protector of Alcatraz, Sausalito, and Treasure Island, you mean?” Snarking hard.

And Rivera is all, “Okay, good point.”

And then the Animals all pull up in two cars, and they jump out all loaded up with squirt guns and garden sprayers, and the Emperor and his dogs jump out, and they are all ready to kick ass, when Rivera stopped them and ’splained and they went off to get high and the Emperor walked off down the waterfront, watching the
Raven
sail out to the Golden Gate.

’Kayso, now the sun is up and Rivera and Cavuto realize that we are totally not vamps, so they take Marvin and climb in their shit-brown mobile and drive off.

So Tommy and I are just standing there, at the edge of the dock, and we can just barely see the
Raven
out by the Golden Gate Bridge, her sails up now, all silver in the sun.

And I’m like, “We should probably go get that money the Countess hid on the roof. It’s like three hundred thousand dollars.” The Countess told us where it was before she left. She said she wouldn’t need it.

And he’s like, “Yeah. It might be a little harder to get up there now that we don’t have super powers.”

And I’m like, “She said there’s a fire escape most of the way.”

And he’s all, “’Kay.” And he’s just staring at the ship.

So I’m like, “So I know you’re not nosferatu anymore, but I could still be your minion, if you needed one.”

And he’s like, “I’m kind of broken-hearted over here.”

And I’m like, “Me, too.”

And he’s all, “Besides, I think you’ve sort of advanced beyond the level of minion.”

So I’m like, “I could be your girlfriend.”

And he’s all, “I thought you loved Foo.”

And I’m like, “I kind of do.”

So then he’s like, “I thought you loved Jody.”

And I’m all, “I do. I’m polyamorous.”

And he’s like, “Now you want to fuck parrots?!”

And I was about to go off on him, but I saw he was grinning, so I just elbowed him in the ribs, like,
you dick,
as we watched the ship disappear into the fog outside the bridge.

And he’s like, “When do you think the
Raven
will be back?”

And I go, all scary voice, “Nevermore.”

Then he looks at me, with a big smile, and he takes my hand. And I totally wanted to kiss him, with plenty of despair and tongue and whatnot. But then I would have had to slap him, so he didn’t think that I was a slut, since I’d only been dumped like hours before. But then I thought, he might slap me for the same reason, so instead of a kiss I decided to do a small celebratory booty dance of forbidden passion, which made him grin like a big doof.

So we sort of stood there, holding hands, looking at
where the ship used to be, realizing that the future was fucking ginormously huge. Like the abyss, only, you know, with better lighting.

And I’m all, “So what now, cornflakes?”

Then he’s all, “I think I’ll write a book.”

Jacket design and illustration by Will Staehle