Christopher Moore - You Suck

"There's a kid," said the moo cow. "A spooky little girl. She takes care of them."

"Them?"

Elijah flung the bum against the garage and proceeded to pick up the change and the bills on the sidewalk. The steel door next to the garage door opened and a burly bald man in overalls stepped out on the sidewalk, smacking a lead-tipped tire thumper on his palm. "You motherfuckers making enough noise out here?"

Elijah bared his fangs and hissed at the biker, then leapt to the wall over the garage door and clung there, facedown, above the biker's head.

The biker looked up at the vampire, down at the prostrate bum, then at the damaged Mazda. "Well, okay then," he said. "I can see you fellas still have some shit to work out." He slipped back into the foundry and slammed the door.

Elijah dropped to his feet and headed up the street, not even bothering to stop to snap the moo cow's neck. How could he have been so stupid? He wasn't going to terrorize her by killing a food source. He needed to threaten her minion, just as he had with the boy. How could he have known that she'd actually betray him and choose the boy? Turn the boy? It wouldn't happen again.

Amid all the anger, the hunger, and the excitement at having a purpose, Elijah Ben Sapir felt a twinge of heartache. He had begun this adventure thinking himself the puppet master; now he was all entangled in the strings. Making mistakes.

No worry. He cocked his head and focused. Past the rasping breath of the moo cow, the buildings settling, the Bay Bridge humming, and a thousand hearts beating in the lofts around him, he could hear the retreating steps of the little girl and her friend.

Apparently I am the Hunted, which, I want to note here, I am totally not qualified for. Here I sit, perched in the rafters (I think these things are rafters) of the Oakland Bay Bridge like a crippled night bird, waiting for doom to descend on me in the form of an ancient, undead thing, to wrench the very limbs from my delicate body. So that sucks.

Fortunately I have some sustenance until my Dark Lord and Lady rise from their diurnal slumber to kick some fucking ass. I know I should be eating bugs and spiders and stuff to facilitate my vampyrism, but as a vegetarian, I haven't developed the hunting skills, so I've started with some Gummi Bears I got at the theater. (Supposedly they are made out of beef pectin or extract of horse hooves or something, so I think they make a good transition to the nosferatu diet. And I like biting off their tiny heads.)

Here, high above the City—well, actually, we're about ten feet above some homeless people who live under the bridge—I feel like the guardian of an ancient tomb, willing to face any attacker to protect my master and mistress, who are wrapped in tarps, lying on the next beam or rafter or whatever.

OMFG, there are fucking pigeons everywhere! Sorry, one just pooped on my notebook. Never mind. Move along. I'm over it. But ewwww!

Jared has gone to his dad's house in the Noe Valley to get the lawn cart and minivan so we can transport my masters to safety. He left me his dagger, which I've only had to brandish once, against a woman who wanted to take the tarp from over my Dark Lord. Then I used it to scrape off my old nail polish, which was totally chipped and stuff from doing minion manual labor.

So, my masters like met up with us outside the Museum of Modern Art and they were all, "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?" And they were being all secretive around Jared, like he didn't know we were vampyres. And I was all, "Just chill, he's assistant minion." So they relaxed.

Then Flood pulls this bronze hand out of his bag and he's all, "Abby, do you know what this is?"

And I was all, "Why yes, Lord Flood," because I speak obvious as a second language. "It's a bronze hand, correct?"

So the Countess took the hand from him. "Abby, this is what's left of the shell of the vampyre who turned me."

So I'm all, "Begging your pardon and whatnot, Countess, but that's a statue hand."

And she's all, "That's what I'm saying." Which is not what the fuck she was saying at all.

So it turns out that the bronze statue that used to be in the loft was actually the vampyre who turned the Countess, and then the Countess turned the vampyre Flood, except he was just Flood then. So the old vampyre, whose name is Elijah, got all PMS and started fucking with the Countess by leaving dead bodies all over town with evidence pointing toward her, and threatening to kill her minion, who was Flood at the time, and it got completely out of hand, with some cops and the geeks from the Safeway blowing up Elijah's yacht and really pissing him off, and then the Countess pretending to save Elijah when in fact she was extracting his ancient vampyry secrets, and Flood bronzing them both, but letting the Countess out because she is the love of his life and whatnot. So Flood, who is not a mysterious and ancient creature of the night at all, but has been a vampyre like a week longer than I have, took the statue down to the waterfront to drop it in the Bay, so it wouldn't remind the Countess of her heart being torn asunder by the yearning for two lovers and stuff. But the sun came up and Flood left the statue on the Embarcadero, and when they went back it was gone, and it turns out that Elijah is loose and he was the crusty vampyre in the yellow tracksuit I saw shaking the huge cat guy and he is now stalking me to get back at the Countess for being a duplicitous ho.

So Jared was all, "Fuck. That's awesome."

And I was all, "You lied to me."

And the Countess was all, "Yeah, sunshine, that's why I'm telling you this now." Which was completely unnecessary sarcasm on her part.

And Jared was like, "This is the best Christmas ever."

And I was all, "Shut up, gay-bait. I've been betrayed."

And the Countess was all, "You'll get over it. We have to go see if William is okay."

And I see now that she was right, but I brooded as we went back to the loft, just to make a point, because I hate it when people take me for granted. When we got to the Countess's block, there was an ambulance there and cops all over the place, so Flood and the Countess hung back and sent me over to get the 411. I could see that the huge cat guy was on a stretcher and they were strapping oxygen on him.

And I was all, "Let me through, this man is my father."

And the EMTs were all, "No way."

And I was all, "Who called you, anyway?"

And they were like, "The guy in the building. A sculptor or something."

And then the cat guy was all, "Let her through."

So they let me through.

So I blew by the EMT to the huge cat guy, and I was all, "Are you okay?"

And he was like, "Well, my head hurts like hell, and I think my leg is broke."

And I was all, "Is there anything I can do?" Because I was under orders of the Countess to gain information and offer assistance.

And he was like, "If you could take care of Chet. He's in the stairwell. He'll be hungry."

And I was all, "You got it."

So then he like pulled the oxygen mask off and had me bend over so he could whisper, and I was all, "Yes, Dad," for the EMTs who were watching.

And he whispered like, "Before they take me away, could I see your tits."

So I kicked him in the ribs. And the EMTs went all byzerk and shit, and told me to get away, but they were totally overreacting, because I had on my red Converse All Stars, which will hardly even bruise you.

So they loaded him into the ambulance, and just as they were shutting the doors, he reached out his hand, like he was a drowning man reaching for the last spark of his mortality before the inky waves of death swept him away—so I flashed my boobs for him, just a quick lift of my bra and top at the same time, because I don't think we do enough to help the homeless, and I wanted him to die a happy man. And besides, they're small and I don't get that many requests.