Tomorrow's Dead: The Julia Poe Vampire Chronicles (30 page)

Poe quit listening after the word “flogging.”  She had heard his bullshit already
while at the City Lights.  Memories of her torture flooded back, and she became weak
to the stomach.  She glanced at Earl and found his jaw was working despite his nonchalant
air.  If they succeeded in torturing her, the entire population of San Francisco would
witness.  She would be Hester Prynne to be judged.  If blows came to blows she would’ve
gladly welcomed a beheading.  But never torture.

The vampire continued his monologue about the greed of Los Angelinos and their viciousness. 
He mentioned Poe murdering Quillon Trench, their fateful ally.  He once again recalled
her balls at stealing over 300 blood cattle four years ago and the murder of the entire
Council in Los Angeles. 

In his rather laborious speech, not once did he mention Sainvire as he had days before. 
Please, Xena and Bruce, let Sainvire be alright.  I need to apologize for my rude
behavior.  Please, Mom and Dad.
  Poe hoped Mina and Sara omitted the information in their report to Nesbitt. 

“Yes, her head will roll, ladies and gentlemen.”  His voice dramatically upticked
a few notches, bringing her back to reality.  “We have a special place for her head
above the building entrance, and her body will be hung upside down on the flagpole. 
But first you will see the mighty Julia Poe stripped of her clothing and flogged. 
A lucky few will share her sweet, untapped blood.  This will be my Christmas present
to you all.”

Poe felt like vomiting.  Nesbitt knew her fear of humiliation in the state of undress,
and yet that topped the entertainment list.  She made up her mind.  She would stab
her heart with a garlic-marinated wrist knife before she would be publicly exposed.

When Nesbitt stopped speaking, no one in the room, not even Earl, dared look at her. 
Sharp feedback from the microphone invaded the ears of those still thinking about
the sinister speech – and lingering on the detailed descriptions of the vampire killer’s
torture.  Poe had stopped listening.  The vampire killer decided then not to allow
Nesbitt to mess with her mind.

“Nice one,” Poe said in her husky tone.  “Too bad I will be the one to string you
up on the flagpole buck naked and gut you like a snared badger, you miserable son
of a bitch.”

Nesbitt’s expensive shoes clicked on the marble floor once more as he slowly approached
Poe who was fuming on the chair.  She itched to free herself of her gag handcuffs
and slug the vampire, but she knew it would be premature.  The underground fighters
hadn’t arrived yet, and she didn’t know the extent of Peter Nesbitt’s powers.

The master vampire, one of three left in San Francisco, stopped short of Julia Poe
and raised his small, manicured hand.  With no expression on his face, his hand landed
with a thwack on Poe’s left cheek, nearly cracking her jaw.  She slid from her chair.

Poe shook her head and rotated her jaw.  She slowly stood but was promptly pushed
down by a hand on her shoulder.  Earl kept her from making trouble.  He squeezed her
shoulder twice as if to convey the postponement of the fight.  Earl kept her seated
as Nesbitt walked away.

Her cheek stung as she ran a tongue inside her mouth, making sure her teeth were all
in place. 
At least there’s no blood to tempt the guards
, she thought.

When she was six an older kid in the Sawtelle neighborhood of West L.A. had slapped
her just to practice his sociopathic tendencies.  She cried.   Later she realized
it wasn’t the pain she was tearing for like a Sicilian mother whose son was killed
by the Mafia.  He hadn’t slapped her that hard.  The slap was meant to cause abject
shame much like rape or torture.  But this time Poe didn’t cry.  She thought.  The
vampire laid his best slapping shot, and the blow felt like a smack from Percy.  The
vampire whose powers took on mythical proportions was a fraud.  He was weak.  No powers
to speak of besides having a conniving brain that kept himself and his city functioning
for 20 years with a boost from an invented legend.

Poe smiled with elation.  Nesbitt happened to glance at her at that moment as he sat
rigidly in the chamber seat meant for the highest order of master vampires.  Her face
lit up and beamed even more.  The dead fascist walked slowly and deliberately every
time she saw him.  He took his time for he didn’t have the speed or powers of the
weakest of his guards.  At least that was her theory.  She imagined kicking him to
death Muay Thai-style and knifing his throat, ending the bullshit of old vampire privilege. 
This was America where everyone was equal under the law, or the law they were rewriting
anyway.

***

Time ticked for Poe like a death row inmate waiting for the needle.  She could hear
the growing number of people whisper and laugh outside the City Hall lawn.  After
an hour a monstrous crowd of San Franciscans formed.  They were leeches, vamps, halfdead,
and custodians.  Poe imagined herself naked and flayed in front of the crowd and banished
the thought.  Nude torture was out of the question.  The mortification of being paraded
and debased wasn’t going to happen again. 
Never.

“Mina.  Sara.  It’s time,” said Peter Nesbitt, rising from his seat.  The two sisters
nodded at him and in turn gestured at the guards.  The red beret guards, the cream
of the crop, marched toward Poe, and the lead guard lifted her off her feet.  With
head held high, she allowed the guards to escort her through the white hallways and
outside City Hall where about 400 beings waited curiously to see what was to happen
to the most notorious vampire eliminator in history.  They looked from her to the
flagpole where the American flag used to fly proudly and whispered into each other’s
ears. 

Fuck that.  I’m no Joan of Arc
, she thought belligerently.

Again she heard buzzing discussions of her height and how they couldn’t believe a
child could eviscerate so many. 
Size doesn’t matter
, she thought angrily
.  I’ll get you all, just watch!

Peter Nesbitt spoke from the highest steps of City Hall while five red berets flanked
Poe on the well manicured lawn.  The blue berets stood in a C-pattern to act as a
barrier to the awaiting spectators.  An assistant handed the vampire a cordless microphone.

“Thank you for coming to the flaying of Julia Poe, a nuisance, a thief, and a murderer
of the worst kind,” he repeated.  “You see, Miss Poe is a very shy person.  She doesn’t
like to be seen in the nude.  One of her outstanding weaknesses, really.  But tonight
you will glimpse the loveliness she is withholding from the world. 

Poe’s full mouth became a slit. 
The underground isn’t going to help me, and Sainvire is nowhere in sight.  This isn’t
going to happen again!

Adrenaline coursing through her veins, Poe pounced on the closest red hat.  She wound
her cuffed hand around his neck and like a monkey jumped on his back until the vampire
dropped chest-first on the ground.  Another small hop breeched his neck, loudly severing
spine.  Quickly she removed her cuffs and assumed a fighting stance with one foot
behind the other and fists in front of her face.  The other four guards raised guns,
but Nesbitt sternly ordered them not to shoot.  He wanted her to suffer an agonizing
punishment.  Poe smiled and kicked two vampires in the crotch.  She’d tried the dirty
trick before and found that vampires actually thought that their manhood was bruised
when struck in the balls.  But they were vampires and mended well.  Mental fighting. 
Poe loved it. 

Poe slipped the knives from her wrists and slashed the downed in the heart.  She accurately
threw the garlic-soaked knives dead center to the hearts of the remaining two guards. 
She retrieved her daggers and stared with feral hatred at Nesbitt and his guards.

“Nesbitt is a dictator!” Poe screamed.  “You bastards have tortured cattle and milked
their blood for so many years they have the nutritional value of cardboard, and you
all know it.  They’re literally dying right now, and leeches are raping their children. 
How can you live with yourselves?” 

Poe instinctively knew that somebody was behind her, and she turned around to find
a red beret sneaking around with a rope.  Before he could think twice, Poe high kicked
him in the face then buried her knife in his eyeball.  The vampire’s yell was excruciating.

Poe resumed her talk like she had never been interrupted.  “I know most of you use
Plasmacore.  You’re more powerful because of it.  You feel like a million bucks. 
It clears your conscience.”

“Enough!” ordered Peter Nesbit.  “What she says is propaganda meant to divide our
city.  Get her!”  The vampire was visibly shaken, his usually aristocratic bearing
wilting.  When nobody made a move he barked, “Now!”

Half of the blues surrounded Poe but with their backs to her, keeping the red berets
out like honed Roman soldiers.  “What the hell is this?” asked a ruggedly handsome
red beret vampire with missing teeth.  “We’re your superiors.”

“Not anymore, you swine,” answered a scarred woman in the blue regiment.  “Your lording
over our city is over.  Either join us or be killed.”

“Yeah, by you?  You blue hats have less power than us.” 

The woman pointed at the crowd.  “There’s almost 500 out there.  Most of them are
ours, and they’re armed.”  To prove her point, she raised a fist, and the crowd on
the lawn imitated the gesture.

Poe tiptoed between two blue berets to search for Nesbitt, but he was gone from the
City Hall steps.  She tried to tear herself from the circle of powerful vampires and
couldn’t.  “Let me out,” she shouted, but no one was listening.

Sara picked the fallen microphone off the floor and raised it to her mouth.  She spoke
with composure, and her gray slacks and simple blue shirt made her accessible to the
folks gathered around City Hall.  “My sister Mina, my brother Earl, and I are part
of the underground.  We want to work with humans, halfdead, vampires, custodians,
and whoever’s willing to make a change.  We will all be equal.  No one above another. 
But there will be rules and regulations that to be voted on and parceled out by a
council composed of different beings.  This is the United States of America where
freedom once reigned, and it will once more.  We’ll be a democracy again.”  She nodded
to someone in the crowd, and up the concrete steps walked Jane, her arm in a sling,
followed by Joel and a custodian.

Poe cursed and dropped down on her knees.  She stuck her knife into two different
shins.  Two blue berets stumbled on the lawn.  The hyper Julia Poe hurdled over the
injured parties and avoided guards like Ms. Pac-Man outmaneuvering multicolored ghosts. 
She reached the steps where the fledgling seeds of a government broadcasted their
plans to San Francisco residents.  She noticed Li among the new dignitaries, grabbed
him by the shirt, and made him follow her inside the building.  “Where the hell is
Sainvire?” she asked, praying that nothing had happened to him.

“He was destroying boats at the harbor and a bomb exploded prematurely.  He was damaged
badly, but he’s healing quickly,” said the annoying Asian man. 

“Where is he?”  Her heart twisted into a bed of nails.  She should have known something
was wrong.  Sainvire wasn’t one to hold a grudge or to avoid her for being rude and
deranged. 

“I don’t know.  He wasn’t at HQ when we left.”  He patted her back.  “Don’t worry,
Poe.  I’ve never seen a vampire heal so fast.  We fed him Plasmacore until he couldn’t
swallow another drop.  I’m sure he’s just taking in the clean air.  I heard L.A. air
stinks.”

“Don’t talk about my city like that, Li, or I’ll gut you,” Poe said seriously.  Despite
the bad memories, Los Angeles was her home, and her home was more than adequate. 
“When you see Sainvire, tell him I’m going after Nesbitt.”

“But they want you to speak to the city residents.  I believe some guards took him
to the chamber room for safekeeping.”

“Tell them hello for me.”  With that, Poe lit like a rabbit with a purpose.  “This
isn’t my city.  I won’t be a poster girl for your makeover.  I’ve done what I set
to do, and Kaleb and I are going home.”

“Fair enough,” said Li.  Earl walked toward them, but Poe didn’t have time to chat. 

Be alright, Kaleb.  I can’t lose you, too.  You’re my life,
she thought as she sprinted to the chamber followed by Earl.

T
HE
MASTER
VAMPIRE
WAS
a sure shot like herself.  The carnage in the room was ghastly.  Twelve blue berets
and three underground resistance fighters died with bullets lodged perfectly centered
on their foreheads.    They looked stunned like they couldn’t believe they were permanently
dead.  They lay askew on the chamber floor, and the eyes and mouths of some were still
open.  Poe felt ill.  She’d killed roomfuls of enemies, and she’d never once bothered
to examine the dead.  A rush of coldness enveloped her.

Peter Nesbitt, her equal or possibly superior in shooting accuracy, sat on his high
chair, taking in Poe’s reaction.  Her knives were mere rocks.  The master vampire
laid out the most expensive and accurate firepower she’d only read about in gun magazines. 
Four gold-dipped Purdey guns, Holland and Hollands, and a Perazzi used for Olympic
shooting competition.  Each weapon ran up to 30 grand each 20 years ago.  Magazine
clips carried 13 to 20 rounds.  She was one dead fish.

“You’ve ruined what we stood for, Julia Poe.  Because of you, this city will be overrun
by vermin.”

“Neat of me, hey,” said Poe, trying to subordinate the fear in her voice.  “No more
master this, master that in the biggest cities in California.  For all we know you
could be pardoned and given a Victorian home, and you can garden to your heart’s content.”