Christopher Moore - Bite Me

“One,” Rivera nodded to Cavuto and grabbed the switch to his jacket LEDs.

“Two.” Troy Lee crouched and aimed his Super Soaker to the center of the doors, ready to strafe in any direction. Cavuto drew his Desert Eagle, cocked the hammer, and thumbed off the safety.

“Three!”

The cops threw open the doors and lit up their jackets, the Animals leaned in.

Six surprised kittens and a mother cat looked out from a box set on stacks of five-gallon detergent buckets.

They all looked around, not saying anything. The Animals lowered their weapons. The cops turned off their jackets.

“Well, that’s embarrassing,” said Troy Lee.

“Biscuit,” Marvin woofed.

They all looked at Marvin. “You suck, Marvin,” said Cavuto. “Those are normal cats.”

Marvin didn’t understand. He had followed the trail, he had made the signal when he came to the end of the trail. Where was his biscuit?

“Bad dog, Marvin,” said Lash.

Marvin growled at him, then turned to Rivera and woofed, “Biscuit.” He was not a bad dog. It wasn’t his fault that no one had taught him how to point up. It wasn’t his fault they weren’t looking up, past the top of the shed, up the wall, to the roof, four stories up. Couldn’t they hear them?

“Biscuit,” he woofed.

Chet watched the vampire hunters moving below. He understood what they were doing and how badly they were doing it. The other cats had moved away from the edge of the roof, the smell of flame, the sunlight jackets, and the dog had made them weary. A few of them were survivors of the encounter with the little Japanese swordsman, and Asians in general still freaked them out a little. Although they couldn’t see the life auras that a human vampire could, it was still in their instinct as predators to take the weak and the sick, and the group below appeared to be neither.

Chet, on the other hand, was less and less of a cat every night. He was bigger than Marvin now, and had lost most of his cat instinct, and whatever he was now, it wasn’t a cat. Although he was still a predator, words kept invading his mind, sounds that produced pictures in his mind. Abstract concepts whirled around in sound and symbols. His kitty brain had been rewired with human DNA, and what had resulted was not only an alpha predator, but a creature with the capacity for revenge, mercy, and conscious cruelty.

Chet watched the group below move out of the alley, led by Rivera and trailed by Barry, the bald, portly scuba diver of the Animals. The kitty part of Chet’s brain saw Barry’s bald spot like a ball of yarn, teasing him to attack. He needed to get it. He went to mist and snaked down the side of the building. He liked climbing face-down, especially since he had grown thumbs, but stealth was the only way to pick off the last one without facing the whole group in combat.

He rematerialized in front of Barry, on his hind feet, and before the hapless grocery clerk could call out, Chet thrust his entire paw into his mouth and unsheathed his claws. There was only a slight gurgling sound, and Clint, the born-again, who had been walking ahead of Barry, turned to see only an empty alley behind him.

Chet was already three floors above him on the wall. Barry dangled from Chet’s claws, twitching, as the huge, shaved vampire cat drank his life away.

“Foo,” Tommy said, right in Foo’s ear. “I want you to remember, before you move, at all, that I was the one who wore your sun jacket to rescue Jody from Elijah. So if I see you even look like you’re going to touch a switch of any kind, I’m going to tear that arm off, okay?”

“I didn’t want to put you in the statue,” said Foo for the third time.

“I know,” Tommy said. “Where’s Jody?”

“She went looking for you.”

Jared started to back away from the door into the kitchen area.

“You too, Jared. If I don’t see your hands for one second, I’m taking them off so I don’t have to worry about it.”

Jared waved his hands in front of him like he was drying his nails. “Whoa, badass much? I’m the one that let you in. I was going to get you some blood.”

“Sorry, stress,” Tommy said. He had Foo by the throat, but lightly.

“Give him the one that’s already opened,” Foo said.

“The one with the drugs in it?” asked Jared.

Foo flinched as if waiting for the sound of his neck snapping. “Yes, that one, you fuckwit.”

“I’m good for now,” Tommy said. Then to Foo, “Jody went where to find me?”

“Just out. Right after she got you out of the shell. She took half the money and most of the blood. Abby said that she was at the Fairmont, but Rivera and Cavuto found her. We don’t know where she is now.”

“Where’s Abby?”

“She’s at her mom’s,” said Foo.

“No, she’s not.” Tommy choked him a little. “She’s here. I can smell her.” He cocked his head. “I don’t hear her heartbeat. Is she dead?”

“Kind of,” said Jared. “She is nossssss-feratu. That’s how she says it. I’m so jealous.”

“Did I do that?”

“No,” said Foo. “She did it herself. You were out of your mind, and you bit her, but Jody pulled you off of her and threw you through the windows. You don’t remember?”

“Not much. Probably a good thing for you, too.”

“She’s under the mattress,” Jared said. “Foo made me hide her there.”

“I’m going to change her back. I told you I could do it and I can. I’m already working on her batch of serum.”

“And she saw Jody last?”

“Her friend Lily saw Jody coming out of the Fairmont a few nights ago. Abby went there to find her and saw Cavuto and Rivera.”

“Then we don’t know if they found Jody while she was out?”

“They didn’t. They didn’t say anything when they came to get their jackets.”

“Their jackets? Sun jackets? You gave them sun jackets?”

“I have to do what they want. They were going to take me in for statutory rape and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

“Really? Have they met Abby?”

“Truth,” said Foo, as wistfully as you can when you’re being choked.

“Tommy, let me change you back. It’s what you wanted. I can do you and Abby at the same time.”

“No. And you’re not changing her. Wake her up.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I’m going to go look for Jody and I’m taking Abby with me. I’m not leaving her here with you guys.”

“Why? She’s my girlfriend. I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“She’s my BFF,” said Jared. “He’s the one who can’t be trusted.”

“I’m taking her with me. I’m not going out there without someone watching my back. Haven’t you ever seen a horror movie? When you split up and go off by yourself, that’s when the monster gets you.”

“I thought in this movie you were the monster,” Foo said.

“Only if you don’t do what I say,” Tommy said, a little surprised to hear himself say it. “Wake her up, Foo.”

The last thing she remembered before burning up were the orange socks. And here they were again, fluorescent orange, highway safety orange socks, at the base of a tiny, blood-encrusted man who was fussing about at some sort of workbench.

“Well, don’t you look yummy,” she said, and she was surprised at the sound of her own voice: dry, weak, and ancient.

The little man turned, startled at first, but then he composed himself, bowed, and said something in Japanese. Then, “Sorry,” in English.

“It’s okay,” she said. “This isn’t the first time I’ve woken up in a strange man’s apartment where I can’t remember how I got there.” This was, however, the first time she remembered where she had been on fire at the end of the night. Before it had gone quite that far, the girls she worked with held a lunchtime intervention in which each told her, frankly and sincerely, as people who loved her, that she was a drunken slut who took all the hot guys at the TGIF bar crawl every week and she needed to knock it the fuck off. So she did.