Christopher Moore - You Suck

Then she just picks me up by the arms and it hurt a lot, and I'm like kicking and thrashing and all, and she throws back her head and here come the fangs.

And I'm all, "No way. They'll just let any-fucking-body into the coven."

And she's all, "Not you. Unless you know where my money is."

And I'm all, "Step off, skank."

And she goes to bite me, and something yanks her back off her feet and I go flying.

Next thing, I'm looking up at the old vampyre in his yellow tracksuit, who is holding the blond ho by the hair, and the pale limo guys are like coming in on him. And Track-suit is all, "Against the rules, pet. You can't go willy-nilly turning everyone you meet. It attracts the wrong kind of attention."

And wham, he smacks her face on the hood of her Mercedes, leaving a face print on the paint, I swear on the crusty hippie grave of my mother.

So I'm all, "Owned! Bee-yatch! Dog fucking owned you!" Doing a minor booty dance of ownage, perhaps, in retrospect, a bit prematurely. (I believe hip-hop to be the appropriate language for taunting, at least until I learn French.)

So they all turn on me. And I'm all, "awkward." So I started backing across the street. And crusty old vampyre bounces monkey cum's face off the hood of the Mercedes a couple of more times, then drops her and comes for me. The limo guys are all sort of standing by the car like they are waiting for instructions or something. Then one of them says, "Hey," and starts coming my way, too.

So I'm at the wall across the street, and I know I can't run, so I reach into my bag and pull Jared's dagger. And Tracksuit starts laughing—like really stoner laughing, pointing at my ensemble.

And I was all, "Shut up, fuckface, this knife and boots totally go with fishnets." Except for the Countess, I realize now that vampyres lose all fashion sense at death.

But then I hear this really loud thumper coming from down the alley, like club music you can feel in your breastbone, and this totally race-pimped yellow Honda comes screaming out of the alley. Who knew you could even get a car down that alley.

So the old vampyre has to jump back to avoid being run over and the limo guys jump back, and I was kind of hiding my head in my arms, but I hear, "Get in," and it's the cool Manga-haired Asian guy who I'd seen outside the loft before.

And I'm all, "What?" Because the music is really loud.

And he's all, "Get in."

And I'm all, "What?"

And by this time the old vampyre has jumped over the hood of the Honda and is about to grab me when there's this flash. Really more than a flash, because it stayed on. But there was this blinding light. And the music goes down and I hear, "Get in."

So I look into the light, and I'm like, "Grandma, is that you?"

Okay, I didn't say that. I'm totally fucking with you. I looked into the light and saw the Manga-haired guy, wearing sunglasses, and he's waving for me to get in his car. And then I see that the old vampyre is charred like Wile E. Coyote after a bad rocket shoes test. And so are the limo guys, and they're smoking and limping away from the Honda, which is shining like a star or something.

And Manga is all, "Now!"

And I'm all, "Shut up, you're not the boss of me." But I got in the Honda and we totally drifted around the corner, and when we're a block or two away Steve (that's his name, Steve) kills the ginormous floodlights in the backseat and I can sort of see again.

And he's all, "High-intensity ultraviolet."

And I'm, "You, too."

And he's like, "What are you talking about?"

I'm like, "I thought it was a compliment."

Then he smiled, like the cutest smile, although he was still driving muy intense and totally badass, and he goes, "No, that light back there was high-intensity ultraviolet. It burns them."

And I was all, "I knew that."

And he was like, "You know that those three guys were vampyres, too, right?"

And I'm all, "Duh." But I didn't know. So I'm like, "How did you know?"

Then he takes off his shades and puts on these binocular robot-glasses things, like they wear in Siphon Assassin Six for Xbox, which I am against because it glorifies violence in the minds of adolescent boys and because it's totally impossible to get a decent head shot when your squad mates are bumping into you, which needs to be fixed in the next version if I'm going to be able to do the "gray spray" on the sentry tower glass.

So Steve is all, "Yeah, they're infrared. You can see heat with them, and there was no heat coming off anyone back there but you."

And I'm like, "Who the fuck are you?"

And he's like, "My name's Steve. I'm working on my biochem masters at S.F. State."

"Stop," I said. "Please do not further endorken youself to me. You have great hair and a car that is most fly, and you have just saved me with your mad ninja driving skills, so do not sully your heroic hottie image in my mind by further reciting your nerdy scholastic agenda. Don't tell me what you're studying, Steve, tell me what's in your soul. What haunts you?"

And he was like, "Dude, you need to cut back on the caffeine."

Which was fair, and I know that he was only saying it out of concern for my welfare and whatnot, because I think he knew even then that we were destined to be together, soul mates.

So while he drives, Steve tells me that he was doing some experiments on some bodies for his master's thingy, and he found that the cells of the victims were regenerating when you added blood to them, and he thinks he can turn them back to normal human cells by using some gene therapy or something. And he's been talking to the Countess and Lord Flood about turning them back, but the Countess is all, "No way, hot Manga-haired science guy."

So I was all, "Why would she want to give up immortality and superpowers and whatnot?"

And he was all, "I don't know."

And I was all, "We should discuss it over coffee."

And he was like, "I would love to do that, but I'm already late for work."

And I was like, "I thought you were a mad scientist."

And he was all, "I work at Stereo City."

And I was like, "Dude, you should get a job at Metreon selling the big-screens, because they have like the best test couches."

And he was like, "Okay." Just like that, "Okay."

So he wanted to give me a ride home, so I would be safe, which is so sweet, but I needed double-soy Mochaccino to calm my nerves, so here I am at Tulley's, totally brooding.

But before I got out of the car, I was like, "Steve, do you have a girlfriend?"

And he was like, "No, I put a lot of time into my studies, and I sort of always have."

And I was like, "So would you be in the market for a Gaijin princess?"

And he was like, "That's Japanese. I'm Chinese."

And I'm like, "Don't change the subject, Kung Pao, what I want to know is if you're ready to spend some up-close and personal time with ninety pounds of barbarian woman-flesh! Sorry, I don't know how much that is in kilos."

I don't know what came over me. I was just fizzing over with adrenaline and passion and whatnot, I guess. I usually don't throw myself at guys, but he was so mysterious and smart and hot.

So he got this big grin and he was like, "My parents would freak out if they saw you."

And I was like, "You live at home?"

And he was all, "Well, uh, yeah, uh, kinda, uh—"

So I grabbed the pen out of his pocket and wrote my cell number on his arm while he stuttered, then when I put the pen back I kissed him sort of hard and totally passionately, which I could tell he liked a lot, so I pushed him away and slapped him so he wouldn't think I was a slut. But not very hard, so he wouldn't think I wasn't interested.

And I was all, "Call me."

And he was all, "I will."

So I was like, "Do not fuck with your hair."