Christopher Moore - You Suck

"Perhaps we'll find something for you to eat, hey, kitty?"

Elijah vaulted off the bar stool and began opening cupboards. In the third one he found pouches of Tender Vittles. He took a bowl from the cupboard that looked as if it had never been used, dumped in the meatish nuggets, and shook them around.

"Come, kitty."

Chet padded a few steps toward the kitchenette, then stopped. Elijah put the bowl down and stepped away. "I understand, kitty. I don't like to eat in front of witnesses either. But sometimes—"

The vampire heard a car pull up outside, a car that hadn't been tuned in a while. He cocked his head and listened as the doors opened and slammed. Four got out. He heard their steps on the concrete, a female voice, hissing at the other three. In an instant he was at the window looking down, and in spite of himself, he smiled again. There was no vivid life aura around the four down on the sidewalk. No healthy pink glow, no black shadow of death. The visitors below were not human.

Vampires. On one hand, an indication of an enormous problem—one that just might attract attention that he could ill afford—but on the other, exciting in a way that he hadn't felt in a hundred years.

"Four against one. Oh my, kitty, how ever will I prevail?"

The old vampire ran his tongue over his fangs. For all the rage, frustration, and discomfort he'd endured since choosing the redhead as his fledgling, he was, for the first time in decades, not bored. He was having the time of his very long life.

"Killing time, kitty," he said, slipping into a pair of Tommy's Nikes.

Jody awoke to the smell of clove cigarettes and the crunching of Cheese Newts. There was music screeching, too—a whiny guy singing about some girl named Ligeia, who apparently he missed a great deal because he was talking about dragging her worm-worn corpse from the earth and caressing her cheek on a cliff above the sea before throwing himself off, with her in his arms. The singer sounded a little down, and like he could have used a throat lozenge.

She opened her eyes and was initially blinded until she adjusted to the black light, then she yelped. Jared White Wolf was sitting on the bed about two feet away from her, shoving handfuls of crunchy Cheese Newts into his mouth. There was a brown rat on his shoulder.

"Hi." Newt crumbs sprayed and fluoresced on the black sheets and clothing.

"Hi," Jody said, turning her head to avoid the crumbs.

"This is my room. Do you like it?"

Jody looked around, for once not really that thrilled with her vampire night-vision abilities. There were disturbing stains glowing on the sheets, and almost everything else in the room was black with a patina of vibrant blacklight-enhanced dust or lint—there was even lint on the rat.

"It's swell," she said. Interesting, she thought. She was no longer afraid of gang members and street criminals, and would even throw down with an eight-hundred-year-old vampire if need be, but rodents still sort of gave her the willies. The rat's eyes were glowing silver in the black light.

"This is Lucifer Two." Jared scooped the animal off his shoulder and held him out.

Despite an attempt at self-control, Jody climbed backwards halfway up the wall, shredding a Marilyn Manson poster with her nails in the process.

"Lucifer One went on to his dark reward when I tried to dye him black."

"Sad," Jody said.

"Yeah." Jared turned the rat and rubbed noses with him. "I was hoping we could turn him to nosferatu when you bring Abby and me into the fold."

"Yeah, sure, that'll happen. Why am I in your room, Jared?"

"It was the only place we could think to bring you. It wasn't safe under the bridge. Abby had to go, so I'm in charge."

"Good for you. Where's Tommy?"

"Under the bed."

She would have known that—would have heard him breathing if the music wasn't cranked up to coffin-splitting volume.

"Could you turn the music down a little, please?"

" 'Kay," Jared said. He tucked Lucifer Two in his pocket and spidered across the bed, getting a little tangled in his black duster, then rolled to the floor and across the room in a commando-under-fire move until he got to the stereo, where he twisted the dial, putting the keening Emo singer out of his misery, or at least shutting him the fuck up.

"Where are we?" Tommy's voice from under the bed. "It smells like gym socks stuffed with ground-up hippies."

"We're in Jared's room," Jody said. She let a hand drop off the edge of the bed. Tommy took it and she pulled him out. He was still partially wrapped in duct tape and garbage bags.

"Was I a hostage again?"

"We had to cover you up to keep you from burning in the sun."

"Well, thanks."

Tommy looked at Jody, who shrugged.

"I was unwrapped when I woke up," she said.

"That's because Abby says you're the Alpha vamp. Do you guys want to play Xbox or watch a DVD? I have The Crow Special Collector's Edition."

"Gee," Jody said, "that would be great, Jared, but we'd better be going."

Tommy had already picked up the Xbox controller, but set it down with marked disapproval, as if he'd notice a little botulism there on the trigger button.

"Oh, you can't go until the 'rents go to bed." Jared giggled, high and girlish. "The door is right by where they watch TV."

"We'll go out a window," Jody said.

Jared giggled again, then snorted a little, then started to honk, then took a hit from the inhaler that hung around his neck before he went on. "There's no window. This basement is totally windowless. Like we've been walled up in here with our own grotesque despair. Isn't it sweet?"

"We could go to mist," Tommy said. "Go out under the door."

"That would be so cool," Jared said, "but my dad put rubber gaskets around the door to contain my disgusting Goth stench. That's what he calls it: my 'disgusting Goth stench. Although I don't think I'm really Goth, more like death punk. He just doesn't like cloves. Or pot. Or patchouli. Or gay people."

"Philistine," Tommy said.

"Oh, would you guys like some Cheese Newts?" Jared picked the box up off the floor and held it out. "I can open a vein on them if you need me to." He waved the thumb Abby had stabbed to prepare their coffee the night before, now wrapped in a ragged ball of gauze and medical tape the size of a racquetball.

"I'm good," Tommy said.

Jody nodded in agreement; although she would love a cup of coffee, she didn't think she should ask the kid to stab himself quite so soon.

She checked her watch. "What time do your parents go to bed?"

"Oh, around ten. You'll have plenty of time to stalk the night and whatnot. Would you like to wash up or something? There's a bathroom down here. And a washing machine. My room was the wine cellar, then my dad crashed his car and started twelve-stepping, so I got this sweet room for my own. Abby says it's dank and disgusting—and she says it like it's a bad thing! I think it's just her perky side manifesting. I love her, but she really can be perky sometimes—don't tell her I said so."

Jody shook her head, then nudged Tommy, who shook his head in agreement. "We won't tell." The kid was sort of giving her the creeps. She thought she might have lost that ability with blood drinking and the sleep of the undead and all, but nope, she was getting completely creeped out.

"Jared, when is Abby coming back?"

"Oh, she should be here any minute. She went to your loft to feed the cat."

"She went to our loft? The loft where Elijah was?"

"No, it's okay. She went during daylight so he couldn't hurt her."

"It's not daylight anymore," Jody said.

"How do you know?" Jared said "No windows, duh."

Tommy Stooge-smacked his forehead with enough force to render a mortal man unconscious. "Because we're awake, you fucking moron!"