Bite Me Page 2

  So it’s like, Christmas night, and Jared and I are watching the midnight show of The Nightmare Before Christmas at the Metreon. And we’re all traumatized and whatnot from watching the vampyre pound the huge cat guy, and the Countess calls us. And she and my Dark Lord Flood meet us for coffee at this Chinese diner, which is like the only thing open because the Chinese totally blow off Christmas because there are no dragons or firecrackers in the story.

  Note to self: Write narrative poem exploring Christmas if the three wise men had given baby Jesus firecrackers, a dragon, and mu-shu pork instead of that other crap.

  So, after all night drinking coffee laced with Jared’s blood and getting the story on the old vampyre from the Countess and Flood, we go back to the loft and there, in the stairway, is the old vampyre, naked. And he’s all, “I had to do some laundry. That guy peed on my tracksuit.” (He was wearing a total gangsta yellow tracksuit when we saw him shaking the huge cat guy.)

  So we like ran, and we had to hide my masters in some rafters under the Bay Bridge when they went out at dawn. No yawning or anything—they just became dead. Well, undead.

  So we wrapped them in trash bags and duct tape and moved them to Jared’s basement lair in Noe Valley. (His basement lair is sacrosanct—his father and stepmother are afraid that they might walk in on him wanking to gay porn—so it was safe for the masters.) Meanwhile, I went back to the loft to feed Chet the huge shaved cat and decapitate the old vampyre with Jared’s dagger so I could get extra-credit points with the masters, but it turned out that I had not calculated sundown quite right. Since when does the sun go down at like five o’clock? That’s just fucking juvenile.

  Anyway, when I’m on the steps I hear the old vampyre moving around upstairs. And I’m all, “Awkward.” Then I hear a car pull up and I run out, right into the arms of this blond ho, who it turns out is the blue ho, who is now nosferatu, along with three of her vampyre minions who used to be the Animals. I know, “Uh-oh.”

  So she grabs me and is just about to tear my throat out, when the old vampyre grabs her by the neck and puts her face print in the hood of a Mercedes. He’s all, “You’re breaking the rules, ho. You can’t just go turning people willy-nilly.”

  So I was doing a minor booty-dance of ownage at the blond ho, when they all turned on me. So I pull out Jared’s dagger, but just the same I know they are going to have a huge group suck on my pale frame, when this totally fly, race-pimped Honda comes tearing out of the alley, and everything goes white light around the car. And my manga-haired love monkey, Foo, is totally in hero shades, and he’s all, “Get in.”

  ’Kayso, he swept me away in his magic nerd-chariot, which he had rigged with ultraviolet floodlights that totally toasted the vamps with simulated sunlight. I know! I’d have done him right there in the car if I was not trying to maintain my detached aura of aristocratic chill. So instead I kissed him within an inch of his life, then slapped him so he didn’t think I was his personal slut, which I totally was. Would be.

  It turns out that Steve, which is Foo Dog’s day-slave name, had totally been staking out the Countess Jody’s apartment for like a month, since he figured out that she was a vampyre when some blood from one of the old vamp’s victims turned up in his hemo-lab at Berkeley. Foo is like some kind of biotech über-genius, in addition to having mad ninja-driving skills.

  Then Foo dropped me off at Tulley’s on Market, where I met Jared and Jody, who sneaked by Jared’s parents by pretending to be lovers, which is disgusting in so many ways I kind of gagged a little when I typed it. ( Jared is my emergency backup BFF, but he is a pervy little rat-shagger, as the Countess affectionately refers to him.)

  So the Countess is all, “I’m going back to the loft to get the money.”

  And I’m all, “No, the old vampyre.”

  And she is all, “He is not the boss of me.” (Or something like that. I’m paraphrasing.)

  And I’m all, “Whatever, make sure you feed Chet.”

  So we go back to Jared’s, and when we get there, the vampyre Flood is all fucked up from trying to climb face-down a building in the Castro after a delicious drag queen, like Dracula does in the book (only in the book it’s not in the Castro and Dracula isn’t after a drag queen).

  Note to self: When I am finally made nosferatu, do not try to climb face-down a wall.

  So then my sweet love ninja Foo shows up. And he’s all, “I couldn’t leave you out here, unprotected.” And secretly I was all, “You rock my stripy socks, Foo,” but publically I just kissed him and tastefully dry humped his leg a little. So we all got in his fly Honda and went back to the loft.

  When we got there, the second-floor windows were open, and Flood could hear that the old vampyre was up there with Jody.

  And Foo was all, “Let me go.” And out of the hatchback, he pulls this long duster that’s covered with little glass warts. And Foo is all, “UV LEDs. Like sunlight.”

  The street-level fire door was locked, so Flood was all, “I’ll go.”

  But Foo was all, “No, it will burn you.”

  But they covered Flood all over, gloves, hat, and a gas-mask that Foo keeps around in case of emergency biology and whatnot, then he put on the duster. Foo gave him a rubber tarp and a baseball bat, and Flood starts working the street like a half-pipe, running up a building on one side, then up the other, until he goes feetfirst through the upstairs window. Personally, I think the Countess could have just jumped up there, but she’s been a vampyre longer than Flood and has better skills.

  ’Kayso, there’s this blinding white light from the windows, and next thing we know, the old vampyre comes crashing through the window like a flaming comet and hits the street right by us. And he gets up all blackened and snarly and whatnot, and Foo holds up his UV floodlight and he’s all, “Step off, vampyre scum.” And the old vampyre ran off.

  Then Flood comes out the door carrying the Countess, who is looking way more dead than usual, and we took them to a motel to hide them until we could figure out what to do. Foo stole some donor blood from the lab at his college and gave it to Flood and the Countess so they could heal. And Foo’s all, “You know, I’ve been working on the blood I found on the victims, and I think I can reverse the process. I can turn you human again.”

  Which is totally why he had been stalking the Countess when I met him. So Tommy and Jody were all, “We’ll think about it.”

  ’Kayso, Flood is holding Jody on the bed, and they’re talking softly, but I can hear them, because I’m just by the door and the room’s not that big. And it is clear that their love is eternal and will last for eons, but Flood doesn’t like being a vampyre because the hours suck and whatnot, and Jody likes being a vampyre because of the power she feels after feeling like a little wuss-girl for many years, and they more or less say that they are going to split up just as the sun rises and they go out.

  And I was all, “Oh, hell no.”

  So I had them bronzed.

  I’m looking at them now. We posed them like Rodin’s The Kiss and they shall be together unto the end of time, or at least until we figure out how to let them out and not have them tear out our throats and whatnot. Foo says it’s cruel, but the Countess told me that they could go to mist, and when they are mist time passes like a dream and it’s all good.

  But Foo did figure out his serum thingy. We lured the Animals to our love nest and while I was wearing the fly leather jacket that Foo made me, complete with the UV LED warts, which is very cool and cyber, I drugged them and Foo changed them back to human. And the crazy old Emperor guy said he saw three young vampyres take the old vampyre and the formerly blue ho away on a ginormous yacht, so we don’t have to worry about them anymore.

  Foo wants to cut Flood and Jody out of the bronze statue during the day, while they are sleeping, and turn them back to human. But the Countess doesn’t want that. So I think we should just wait. We have this très cool apartment, and all of the money, and Foo almost has his master’s in bio-nerdism or whatever, and I
only have to go home like twice a week so the mother unit still thinks I am living there. (The key was to condition her from age twelve that sleepovers are normal. Lily, my former sleepover BFF, calls it slowly boiling the frog, which I don’t know what it means, but it sounds darkly mysterious.)

  So, we are secure in our love nest and as soon as Foo gets home I am going to reward him with the slow booty dance of forbidden love. But something is screeching outside. BRB.

  Fucksocks! It’s Chet the huge shaved vampyre cat, down on the street. He looks bigger, and I think he ate a meter maid. Her little cart is running and there’s an empty uniform on the curb.

  Bad kitty! GTG L8erz.

  2

  Test

  1. The Countess Abigail Von Normal is:

  A. Emergency Backup Mistress of the Bay Area Dark.

  B. A Gothic hottie consumed by the banal hopelessness of existence.

  C. Not perky, but dark, complex, and très mysterious.

  D. All the above, and possibly more.

  2. The vampire Flood and his nosferatu maker, the Countess Jody, were imprisoned in a bronze shell in the pose from Rodin’s The Kiss because:

  A. Their love is eternal and their mingled souls will live on in romantic embrace to the end of time.

  B. Foo and I were pretty sure that the Countess would go FOAKES (Freak Out and Kill Everything in Sight) when she found out our plan to turn the Animals back to human.

  C. We just like to look at our friends, naked and bronzed, because it gets us all hot.

  D. I can’t believe you picked “c.” You should get a big “L” tattooed on your forehead to save people time in figuring out what a ginormous loser you are! You wish that Foo and I needed pervy preludes to stimulate our orgasmic, toe-curling soul-sex. Trust me, the sun weeps that it cannot achieve the blistering hotness of our nookie.

  3. Despite myths perpetrated by jealous day dwellers, the nosferatu are only vulnerable to the effects of:

  A. Garlic. (Right, because pizza and the breath of vegans will quell their ancient power.)

  B. Crosses and holy water. (Oh right, because creatures of darkest evil are total bitches of the baby Jebus.)

  C. Silver. (Uh-huh, and aluminum, because that makes sense.)

  D. Sunlight.

  4. My and Foo’s greatest challenge as minions is to protect our dark masters, the Countess and Lord Flood, from:

  A. Cops, specifically Inspector Rivera and his clueless Gay Bear partner Cavuto.

  B. The most crusty old vampire and his mysterious fashion-vamp posse.

  C. The Animals, slacker wastee night crew from the Marina Safeway.

  D. All of the above and whatnot.

  5. Our best chance of defeating Chet, the huge shaved vampire cat, is:

  A. Mouse ninjas.

  B. A big hug while wearing my most fly UV-LED leather jacket, fashioned for my protection by my aforementioned muffin master, Foo.

  C. A saucer of tuna blood laced with sedatives and kitty-butt flavor. (I observed in his former mortal form, that Chet loves kitty-butt flavor.)

  D. Make a vampire Rottweiler to rock Chet’s worldview.

  E. Either “a” or “c,” but definitely not “d” wouldn’t “a” be très cool? Mouse ninjas!

  Answers:

  1: D, 2: B, 3: D, 4: D, 5: E

  Give yourself one point for every right answer.

  Score:

  5. You rock my stripy socks.

  4. Loser!

  3. Très Loser!

  2. Such a Loser that Losers pity you.

  0–1. Spare us your contagious loserness. Next bridge you pass? Over you go.

  3

  The Samurai of Jackson Street

  TOMMY

  When he first arrived in San Francisco, Tommy Flood had shared a closet-size room with five Chinese men named Wong, all of whom had wanted to marry him.

  “It’s horrible—like being packed into a take-out box of Kung Pao chicken,” Tommy had said, and although it wasn’t like that at all, and Tommy was just trying to use colorful language which he felt was his duty as a writer, it was very crowded and smelled strongly of garlic and sweaty Chinese guys.

  “I think they want to pack my fudge,” Tommy had said. “I’m from Indiana, we don’t go for that kind of stuff.”

  As it turned out, the Chinese guys didn’t go for that kind of stuff either, but were, in fact, very much interested in getting green cards.

  Fortunately, only a week later, in the parking lot of the Marina Safeway where he worked nights, Tommy met a gorgeous redhead named Jody Stroud, who rescued him from his confinement with the Chinese guys, by giving him her love, a nice loft apartment, and immortality. Unfortunately, little more than a month after that, their minion, Abby, had them bronzed while they slept, and Tommy awoke one night to find that despite his great vampire strength, he couldn’t move a muscle.

  “I’d rather be trapped in a take-out box of Kung Pao chicken,” Tommy would have said if he could have said anything, which he couldn’t.

  Meanwhile, right next to him, sharing the same bronze shell, his beloved Jody drifted in a dream-state, a side effect of being able to turn herself to mist, a trick she had learned from Elijah Ben Sapir, her vampire sire. Between the dead sleep of daylight, and the floating in a dream-world, she could endure decades inside the statue. Tommy, however, had never learned how to turn to mist. There had never been time to teach him. So come sundown, his vampire senses came on like neon, and he experienced every second of his confinement with an electric intensity that nearly had him vibrating in his shell—an alpha predator pacing the cage of his mind and shredding his reason. Of course, he did the only thing he could do: he went barking at the moon mad.

  CHET

  He’d have to lick about a mile of kitty-butt to get the taste of meter maid out of his mouth, but Chet was up for it. He raked a couple of hind-leg kicks through the dust that was the meter maid’s remains, and headed across the street and into the alley, where he curled up in the dark and set about blunting the human taste.

  It was only a little over a month since the old vampire had turned Chet, but already he was losing all sense of his former self. Time was, that he spent his days on Market Street, napping next to William, the homeless man who made his living with a paper cup and a sign that said, I AM HOMELESS AND MY CAT IS HUGE. Chet was indeed very large, and while much of his volume had been fur, he had achieved a weight of thirty-five pounds on a diet of semi-used hamburgers and French fries donated by passersby outside of McDonald’s.

  Now Chet hunted the night, taking down nearly any warm-blooded creature he encountered: rats, birds, squirrels, cats, dogs, and even the occasional human. At first it had only been drunks and other homeless, and the first time he had drained one, his old friend William, who turned to dust in front of him, Chet yowled, ran, and hid under a Dumpster for the rest of the night and all of the next day. There was no regret, simply hunger and elation of the blood rush. It was beyond the satisfaction of the kill, it was positively sexual, something Chet had never known as a normal cat, as he’d been neutered by the animal shelter when still a kitten. But along with speed, strength, and senses far more sensitive than even a human-based vampire, Chet, like his human counterparts, found that he was physically restored to perfection. In other words, his junk was working.

  He found that soon after the kill he desperately needed to hump something, and the more squirmy and wailing, the better. Above the smells of bus fumes, cooking food, and urine-bathed curbs that pervaded the City, he caught the scent of a female in heat. She might be a mile away, but given his newly heightened senses, he’d find her.

  A wave of excitement undulated under the fur of his spine, fur that had mostly grown back since the humans had shaved him, mated in front of him, and drank his blood, which served to traumatize his little kitty consciousness before he was turned vampire, and motivated a whole new feeling he’d grown into as a vampire cat: vengeance. For since his metamorphosis, it wasn’t just h
is senses that had expanded. His brain, which before had run a loop of “eat-nap-crap, repeat,” was now growing into a whole new awareness, getting bigger, even as Chet grew. He was a good sixty pounds now, and roughly as smart as a dog, where before he’d only been a little brighter than a brick. Dog. The hated. There was dog on the air. Coming closer. He could smell it—them—two of them. And now he could hear them. He arose from his butt bath and screeched like an electrified lynx. In response, the neighborhood echoed with a chorus of yowls from a dozen other vampire cats.

  THE EMPEROR

  “Steady, fellows,” said the Emperor. He laid his hand across the neck of the golden retriever and scratched under the chin of the Boston terrier, who squirmed in the great pocket of the Emperor’s overcoat, looking like a frantic, black-and-white, bug-eyed kangaroo mutant.

  “Cat! Cat! Cat! Cat! Cat!” barked Bummer, with a spray of doggie slobber across the Emperor’s palm. “Cat! Murder, pain, fire, evil, cat! Can’t you smell them? Everywhere! Must chase, chase, chase, bite, bite, bite, let me go you insane, oblivious old man, I’m trying to save you, for the love of God, CAT! CAT! CAT!”

  Unfortunately, Bummer only spoke dog, and while the Emperor could tell that the Boston terrier was upset, he had no idea why. (Anyone who translates dog knows that only about a third of what Bummer said actually meant anything. The rest was just noise he needed to make. Human speech is about the same.) Lazarus, the golden retriever, having battled vampires on and off for the last two months, and being steady by nature, was much calmer about the whole thing, but despite Bummer’s tendency to overreact, he had to admit, the smell of cat was tall in the air, and what was more disturbing, it wasn’t just cat, it was dead cat. Dead cat walking. Wait, what was that? Not cat—cats. Oh, this was not good.