Christopher Moore - You Suck

After being burned up for the second time in two days, Blue was ready for a healing massacre—a bloodbath—but the Animals had stopped her, citing sissy ethical reasons like murder was, you know, wrong.

"You're burned up!" Blue said. "This is no time to develop a conscience. Where was your conscience when you were making me do you a dozen times a day, huh?"

"That's different," said Drew. "You were in on it."

"Yeah," added Jeff. "And we paid you."

"No one was hurt, amiga," Gustavo added.

Blue broke off some charred crust coming over the seat of the Mercedes at Gustavo, who was in the passenger seat. Drew dragged her back into her seat by her hips. She crossed her arms and pouted, huffing out little flakes of ash in exasperation. They were supposed to be doing her bidding. They were supposed to be her seven—well, three—dwarves.

"You shut the fuck up, bean town. I was hurt. I am hurt. Look at me."

They didn't look at her. They were all burnt black from the waist up, in the front at least. Their shirts hung on them in charred shreds. The linen dress that Blue had been wearing had incinerated almost completely. She was wearing only her panties and a severely singed bra. Her face was still a bit lopsided from where Elijah had banged it on the car hood.

"We didn't do this, Blue," Drew said.

Blue smacked him repeatedly in the head a half-dozen times, knocking off most of one of his charred ears and all of the carbon strands that were what was left of his hair. The tip of her little finger broke off in the process, at which point she sat back and growled like a beaten dog.

"We need blood to heal," Blue said. "Lots of it."

"I know," Jeff said. The charred power forward was driving. "I'm takin' care of it."

"You just passed five perfectly good teenagers," Blue said. "Where the fuck are you going?"

"Somewhere where the donors can handle our action," Jeff said.

"Well, we're broke until you get my money back, so your donors better have some fucking cash."

"We can't exactly go into a bar in the financial district," Drew said. "Not looking like this."

"Oh, like they'd let you dirtbags in at your best." Blue found that being burnt up put her on edge more than normal. She'd tried taking a Valium left by the Mercedes guy, just like Drew and the other had downed handfuls of his painkillers, only to find their vampire systems rejected them with extreme violence.

"We're here," Jeff said, pulling the Mercedes into a wide public parking lot.

"You're fucking kidding me," Blue said. "The zoo?"

Tommy waited half an hour before he called Jody's cell, only to get a dropped signal, then voice mail. He called three more times in the next half hour, played two rounds of Gunning for Nuns Xtreme on Jared's Xbox, called Abby's cell only to get voice mail, then made his first sincere attempt at turning to mist. Jody had said it was a mental thing, you just had to see yourself as mist, force yourself to mist, "like flexing a muscle," she had said. "Once you've done it once, you just know how it feels and you can do it again. Like getting up on water skis."

It wasn't that he could get out of the basement undetected, it was what Jody had said about being in the mist state—that time sort of just glided, like you were in a dream. It was the only reason, she said, that she hadn't beaten him senseless for having her bronzed. When you were mist, it just wasn't all that bad. Maybe if he could turn to mist, he could pass the time without driving himself nuts with worry.

For all his mental flexing, all he got was a flatulent toot that sent him diving for the door and fanning the room out with it. He was truly a foul dead thing—fouler than he'd even guessed. He looked for paint peeling off the walls.

That was it. He was not a kid hiding in his friend's basement, he was a—what did Abby call it? — he was one of the anointed, a prince of the night. He was going to walk out of here, right past the family, and if he had to take them out, well, so be it. That would teach Jody for leaving him behind and turning her phone off. How do you feel now, Red? Huh? Massacred, dismembered family? Huh? Glad you saved your anytime minutes now?!

He tramped up the steps and into Jared's parents' family room.

"Hi," Jared's father said.

Tommy had expected a bit of a monster based on Jared's description of his father. Instead what he saw was a bit of an accountant. He was about forty-five, in pretty good shape, holding a little girl on his lap who was coloring a picture of a pony. Another little girl, who looked about the same age, was coloring on the floor at his feet.

"Hi," Tommy said.

"You must be the vampire Flood," Jared's dad said, with a bit of a knowing smile.

"Uh. Well. Kinda." It showed. He could no longer hide among the humans. It must be because it had been so long since he had fed.

"Sort of a weak ensemble, don't you think?" Jared's dad said.

"Weak," repeated the little girl without looking up from her pony.

"Huh?" Tommy inquired.

"For a vampire. Jeans, sneakers, and flannel?"

Tommy looked at his clothes. "Black jeans," he pointed out. Shouldn't this guy be cowering in fear, maybe begging Tommy not to put his little daughter in a sack for his vampire brides?

"Okay, I suppose times change. You know that Jared and his girlfriend went up to Tulley's on Market to meet Abby, right?"

"His girlfriend, Jody?"

"Right," said Dad. "Cute girl. Not as many piercings as I expected, but we're just happy she's a girl."

An attractive blond woman in her late twenties came into the room carrying a tray with carrot and celery sticks on it. "Oh, hi," she said, dazzling a smile at Tommy. "You must be the vampire Flood. Hi, I'm Emily. Would you like some crudites? You're welcome to stay for dinner. We're having mac and cheese, it was the girls' night to pick."

I should drink her blood and put her kids in a sack, Tommy thought. But his vicious predator nature was overcome by his Midwestern upbringing, so instead he said, "Thank you very much, Emily, but I really should be going if I'm going to catch up to Jared and Jody."

"Well, okay then," said the woman. "Girls, say good-bye to the vampire Flood."

"Good-bye, the vampire Flood," the girls sang in chorus.

"Uh, bye." Tommy bolted out of the room, then back in again. "Where's the door?"

Everyone pointed through the kitchen, whence Jared's stepmonster had just come.

He ran through the kitchen and out the door, then stood with his back against the minivan in the drive, trying to catch his breath. "That was fucked up," he gasped, then realized that he wasn't out of breath from exertion at all. He was having an anxiety attack. "That was really, really fucked up."

It was a lot like trying to get your courage up to ask a girl to dance, except that in this case it wasn't so much the fear of rejection, or that you'd be awkward and embarrass yourself, although that was a consideration, but that whoever you picked was going to be reduced to dust, which was somewhat more significant than trampling her toes.

Tommy stood on Castro Street looking for his next victim. His first victim, really. He was tired of being the apprentice. If Jody was going to just leave him in the basement because he wasn't vampire enough for her, then maybe he'd have to become like her. Maybe he'd learn about this predator nature she talked about. Maybe, like that guy in the basement in The Phantom of the Opera, he would have to hear "The Music of the Night." He wasn't sure what had happened to the basement guy. He'd gone to see the movie with a girl from his high school, but had to leave halfway through to keep from taking his own life. It hadn't been a good date.