Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

“You two go on ahead,” Doodlebug said. “I’ll be right in. I left something in the car.”

Jules followed her into the house. He’d been inside dozens of camelbacks just like this one, enough that he had a pretty complete mental picture of what the interior would probably look like. This one didn’t fit the bill at all. The furniture was surprisingly modern and high rent. The walls of the long, narrow living room were lined with European-looking leather sofas, German stereo components, and a flat-panel TV big as a casino billboard. A freestanding waterfall burbled in one corner. The dining room was decorated with real oil paintings, not prints. Several of them featured jazz combos, Jules noted with appreciation.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” he mumbled.

“Thanks,” she answered, barely looking at him. “So what’s the story with this disease? And how did you know Malik is a bloodsucker?”

Jules smiled weakly and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m just the assistant. We gotta wait for Dr. Richelieu. He, uh,she’s the expert.”

“Fine.” She looked at him with more interest. Did her eyes flare with a glimmer of recognition, or was this just his jumpy imagination acting up again?

Whatever the look was, it made him uncomfortable. He took a few steps toward one of the couches.

The leather-swathed cushions looked soft and inviting. “Mind if I sit down?”

She pulled one of the hard-backed oak chairs away from the dining table for him. “Not at all.”

Doodlebug came through the front door. “Sorry to keep everyone waiting. Did I miss anything?”

“I’m not sure I can be of much help, Doctor,” the woman said. “Me and Malik… we ain’t what you’d call close. I ain’t seen him in a long time. Maybe five, six years.“

“Do you have any idea where we might find him?”

“Oh, I hear he still be around town somewhere. Here and there. He never did stay in one place very long. Time comes to dust the apartment, he just moves on to a fresh one.“

“Do you have friends in common? Any relations who might know how we could get in touch?”

“Before I put you in touch with other folks to bug in the middle of the night, how about tellin‘ me some more about this disease?“

Doodlebug sat down at the table and folded his hands together thoughtfully. “It’s a degenerative bone disease. Very painful. It leads to weak, easily fractured bones and can’t be reversed once it passes a certain stage. During the early, reversible stages, no symptoms are apparent; the disease can only be detected through a special blood test of my own devising.“

Elisha Raddeaux looked less than fully convinced. “And how does one catch this nasty bone disease?”

“By ingesting the blood of an HIV-positive individual or a carrier of the hepatitis C virus.”

“I see.” She stared long and hard, first at Jules, then at Doodlebug. “Look, I’ll do my best to help you. There’s no love lost between me and my brother. I sure don’t approve of what he is and some of the things he done. But I figure nobody deserves to be sufferin‘ with no disease. Give me some time to think, and maybe I can come up with somethin’ for you two to go on. In the meantime, can I get you anything? I got some crumb cake, and I can make a pot of coffee.”

Jules’s face lit up. “Hey, thanks! Some coffee’d begreat. I’ll pass on that crumb cake, though.”

“Anything for you, Doctor?”

Doodlebug smiled and shook his head. “Oh, no, thank you. I ate just before we came over.”

She stood from the table and headed for the kitchen. “It’ll be a few minutes. I got one of them old-fashioned percolators that takes a while to get goin‘.” She closed the kitchen door behind her.

Jules gave Doodlebug the thumbs-up sign. “Hey, pal,” he whispered, “that’s some great bullshit story you came up with. Bone disease…yeeuuch! So, whadda ya think? She on the level? You think she’s gonna help us out?”

Doodlebug eyed the kitchen door pensively. “I’m not sure. Something seems off. Her body language didn’t match her conversation-”

From the far side of the door Jules heard the distinctive tones of a push-button phone’s keys being pressed. “Shit! She’s makin‘ a call! She’s rattin’ us out!”

He started to get up from the table, but Doodlebug caught his arm. “Don’t worry about that.” The slender vampire grinned. “While I was outside, I took a little precaution. She won’t be getting through to anyone until after South Central Bell makes a service call.”

Jules overheard a soft expletive in the kitchen, followed by more button pushing, followed by still more, and stronger, profanity.

“Guess this means I won’t be gettin‘ my coffee,” Jules said wistfully.

He jumped as there was a loud crash in the kitchen. Now hedid get up from the table. “Hey! You, uh, you okay in there?“

“I’m fine,” the woman’s voice answered, a little too strongly. “Just had a little accident. No problem.”

“You need a hand with somethin‘?”

“No!I’m justfine! Don’t you concern yourself none.”

Jules looked uncertainly at his companion. His resolve hardened. He went to the door and opened it.

“Die-ie, you fat fuckah!”

She charged him like an enraged lioness, slashing wildly with jagged wooden pieces from a broken bar stool. He dodged as best he could. But one of her improvised stakes connected with an ample love handle, shredding his new safari suit and taking a decent-sized chunk of him with it.

“Ahhh!You fuckin‘bitch!”

The other stake gouged his cheek, leaving a bloody trail. He tried grabbing her, but she was astoundingly fast and strong. She shrugged off his bear hug as if he were made of tinfoil, bouncing him into the dining room wall and spilling him heavily to the floor.

Then she whirled on Doodlebug. What happened next occurred almost too quickly for Jules’s pain-clouded eyes to follow. Doodlebug moved like a ninja from a Bruce Lee flick. First his foot crashed into her wrist, sending a stake flying. She thrust her other dagger at his chest. He ducked low and bent her weapon arm sharply over his shoulder. Jules heard a sharp break and an even sharper scream. Then Doodlebug became a blur of motion. His whirling kick exploded against the side of her head and sent her flying against the dining room wall.

She still wasn’t down for the count. Jules struggled to clear his vision. His side burned like hell. He looked down-his left side, from mid-rib cage down, was drenched with blood. Weirdly, the front of his safari suit was stained with brown smudges. He rubbed one of the smudges. Some of the brown came off on his finger; oily, like wet paint. Makeup. It was makeup.

“Jules! I need some help here! I can’t hold her much longer!”

“Youfucks!” she screamed. “You won’t get away withnothin‘! I’ll kill you! Fuck youboth up!”

Jules stared at Malice X’s sister. Most of the makeup on her arms had rubbed off during their brief struggle. Her exposed skin was deathly gray.

She was a vampire.

“Jules! Snap out of it! Or do you want to have to fight her all over again?”

She was a vampire, just like he was. He struggled to get up from the floor. She writhed and thrashed in

Doodlebug’s tight grasp, trapped in his arms like a live electrical wire. A vampire.

“Jules! Grab one of those stakes she dropped! Run her through before she breaks away!”

He felt like he was moving in slow motion. Like he was swimming through cream of mushroom soup. He leaned down and picked one of the stakes off the floor. She spat at him. He could see her fangs very clearly as she pulled her lips back to curse and hiss.

“Jules! Comeon! Get with the program!”