Part 17 (1/2)

And Flood is all, ”He was going to change you back. To save you.”

And I go, ”Without even asking? I think not, n.o.ble vamptard. As soon as we find the Countess I'm coming back. There will be screaming.”

And Flood's like, ”You don't have any confrontation issues, do you?”

And I'm all, ”No, I'm very insecure, actually, but I have found that if you roll up screaming like a madwoman, hair on fire, guns blazing, no one is going to mention the zit on your forehead.” Which is totally true.

”Okey dokey,” goes the vampyre Flood. ”We'll look for someplace low or high. Low is probably safest, we can look for maintenance closets in the BART tunnels, but that keeps us out of the north end of the City, because there's no subway there. High, harder to find a place, but it gives us more choice, and it's less obvious, if Rivera and Cavuto are looking for us. There are a lot of utility sheds and meter shelters on roofs.”

So I'm like, ”Are we going to sleep together?”

And Flood's like, ”No, but we'll be dead in the same s.p.a.ce.”

And I was thinking, ”How romantic,” but I go, ”Let's get high.”

And Tommy's all, ”I think that's a good idea. Jody lived in the north end of the City and so did I. It makes sense that's where she'd go. We need to get into the upper floors of a tall building and look down on other roofs, look for a shed or something. Climbing up won't be a problem. You can tell if there's people in it by looking for heat. You know you can see heat now, right?”

And I'm like, ”I was figuring that it was that or that every lightbulb was leaking into the sky. But how do you know all this other stuff?”

And Tommy's like, ”I have no idea.”

And I was like, ”If we find a roof shack with a pigeon coop by it we'll have snacks when we wake up.” I know, perky. I must resist the perky. Must resist the perky.

So, like, an hour later we've found our sweet roof grave on a building in the financial district, and Flood and I are walking up Powell Street, toward California and the Fairmont, where the Countess was last seen. And we are totally alive with the night. There's like two cities in the City. I didn't see it before. There's like the indoor city, the daytime city, with people inside of apartments and restaurants and offices, and they have, like, no f.u.c.king clue about the outside city. And there's the outside city people, who are in the streets all the time, and who know every hiding place, and every tree, and where it's dangerous, and where it's just creepy. The outside city people live on, like, a different plane of existence, like they don't even see the inside people either. But when you're a vampyre, the two cities are all lit up. You can hear the people talking and eating and watching TV in their houses, and you can see and feel the people in the streets, behind the garbage cans, under the stairs. All these auras show, sometimes right through walls. Like life, glowing. Some bright pink, like Foo's, some sort of brown, or gray, like on the AIDS vet panhandling at the corner of Powell and Post. And I'm totally losing my ability to appear bored, because it's f.u.c.king awesome. I'm trying to be chill for Flood, but I want to know.

So I'm like, ”What's with the pink ring around people?”

And he's like, ”It's their life force. You can tell how healthy they are by it. You'll be able to smell if they're dying, too, but you won't know that right away.”

I know, whoa. So I'm like, ”Whoa.”

And he's all, ”You see it for a reason.”

And I'm like, ”'Splain, s'il vous plait s'il vous plait.”

And he's all, ”Because you're only supposed to take the sick, the dying. It's part of our predator nature. I didn't know that before I-I was lost, but I know it now.”

I know, whoa. So I'm like, ”Okay, how do you turn to mist?”

And he's like, ”It's mental. Completely. You can't think about it, you just have to be be.”

And I'm like, ”You're f.u.c.king with me, aren't you?”

And he's all, ”No, if you think, it doesn't work. You have to just be. Words get in the way. I think that's why the cats do it instinctively. That's the key. Instinct. I don't function well on instinct. I'm a word guy.”

And I'm all, ”I'm a word guy, too,” like a total dwee-bosaurus. I know. How is it that I, acting Mistress of the Greater Bay Area darkness, can be reduced to spewing nano-brained beauty-queen dialog when I should be enjoying the heady power of my vamp immortality? Simple, I am a romance s.l.u.t, and there's nothing I can do about it. If a guy does or says something romantic, I'm all, ”Oh, please excuse me, kind, sir, let me dial down my IQ and oh, if it would please sir, may I offer you this moist, yet helpless va-jay-jay that seems to have lost its way.” I was clearly born in the wrong time. I should have been born in Wuthering Heights Wuthering Heights times. Although if I was Cathy, I would have hunted down that Heathcliff guy and beat him with a riding crop like a sado-hooker with his Black Card on file. Just sayin'. times. Although if I was Cathy, I would have hunted down that Heathcliff guy and beat him with a riding crop like a sado-hooker with his Black Card on file. Just sayin'.

So there's nothing at the Fairmont. We talk to the bellman and the guy at the concierge desk, who talks to the front-desk guy who says that he's not at liberty to talk about guests, when I whip a hundred-dollar bill on him and he says ”the redhead” never showed up again after the day the cops came around asking for her. He said the cops took a cooler from her room.

And Tommy's like, ”She just vanished.”

And I'm all, ”Do you want to get coffee? I have a bag of blood and ten thousand dollars in my messenger.” The nosferatu can totally drink lattes as long as they put some blood in it, unless they're lactose intolerant.

And he stops and looks at me. He's like, ”Really, ten thousand? Think that will be enough?”

And I'm like, ”Well, you'll have to drink the cheap stuff, but I like to drink my lattes directly out of the veins of a toddler, and those little f.u.c.kers aren't cheap.”

And he's like, ”Okay, you just completely creeped me out.”

So I'm all, ”You suck at this. Let's go get coffee and do some vamp stuff, like beat up some pimps and whatnot.”

”Since when is beating up pimps a vampyre thing?”

”Since I was looking for the Countess and they kept trying to recruit me because I'm am so awesome s.e.xy that desperate losers will totally pay to do me, which is flattering and whatnot, but I still kind of feel like they would have taken advantage of me because of my youth and naivety.”

”So you want to go beat them up.”

”I want to try that kung-fu thing where you tear their heart out and show it to them while it's still beating. Tres Tres macabre, macabre, non non? Plus, I'll bet the look of surprise on their faces will be worth it. Did you do that when you were out slaughtering people with Chet?”

”I don't remember any of that. I don't remember slaughtering people.”

”That's why the pimps were trying to recruit me. You and Chet ate all their hos.”

”You make it sound so sordid.”

”Okay, you make eating hos sound pretty. Talk poetry to me, writer boy.”

And he looks all heartbroken and whatnot. And he's like, ”That's what Jody calls me.”

And I'm like, ”Sorry. Where do you want to look for her now?”

”I don't know. What time is it?”

And I look at the watch that the Countess gave me, and I'm all, ”A little after one,” in my I am total p.o.o.p on a stick I am total p.o.o.p on a stick voice. voice.

”Polk Street.”

And I'm all, ”Why Polk Street?”

He's like, ”Because I'm out of ideas and we need to resort to magic.”

And I'm like, ”Sweet! Let's rock the dark magic!” I was tempted to do a booty dance of total dark magic celebration, but I thought it might reveal my secret.

'Kayso, we roll into this coffee shop on Polk Street, and it's all full of hippies and hipsters and couples on dates and drunks sobering up and whatnot. And everyone turns and looks at us. I'm about to chuck a spaz, because I realize that I haven't fixed my makeup since I bounced my face off the plywood in the love lair.

So I'm all, ”Tommy, psssssst, do I look like a cannibal corpse on crack?”