Bite Me

Emperor would have let it pass with a calming word, but there was still half a submarine sandwich to be eaten, and something had to be very much amiss for Bummer to leave the scene of a sandwich.
    Now Lazarus sniffed the chill wind coming off the Bay and whimpered, and tossed his head, then looked back at the Emperor, which translated from dog to, “Smells undead, boss.”
    The Emperor didn’t understand what his companions were saying to him, but he suspected. He just wasn’t ready to hear it. It had only been a few hours since the two police inspectors had dropped him off at the St. Francis Yacht Club, where the members allowed him and the men the use of the outer showers, and one of the members had purchased this lovely sandwich and presented it to them in thanks for their service to the City. Only an hour since he’d actually managed to straighten his neck out, after spending the better part of a night upside-down in a barrel. And only now, after a walk along the waterfront and a good meal, was the pain in his knees and shoulders starting to subside. He wasn’t ready to go back into battle.
    “I am a selfish old man,” he said to the men. “A coward, worried for my own comfort, when my people are threatened. I am afraid.” But even as he said it, he was rising on his creaky knees, pushing himself up on the walking stick he’d retrieved only this morning from the Yacht Club, where he’d left it for safekeeping. The handle was carvedout of ivory into the shape of a polar bear, and it fit the Emperor’s hand like it had been made for him, although it had been a gift from a nice young man named Asher, who owned the secondhand store in North Beach, but that’s another story. He wished there had been a blade in it, like the cane young Asher carried. Alas, he would have to face the black ship with only a stick, a sandwich, and his intrepid furry companions.
    He puffed himself blowfish style and headed up the dock, Bummer and Lazarus following along behind him, ears lowered, trailing a two-part growling harmony. A few people had gathered along the fence at the breakwater, and were pointing to the great ship. It wasn’t so unusual that one might bring his day to a full halt, but if you were in the middle of a run or a brisk walk and needed a reason for a pause, the black ship would certainly fire the imagination long enough for you to catch your breath.
    Once at the ship, the Emperor was unsure of what to do. There was really no reason beyond Bummer’s behavior to justify boarding her. And this ship was not of his city, therefore he could not claim dominion over it. He could hear the attitude jets firing just under the water, sporadically, to keep the ship in place. It was only a step, albeit a long step, and he’d be standing on the deck at her prow. Perhaps, having made the leap, a further course of action would occur to him. He backed up on the dock to take a run at it, or as much of a run as his advanced age and boiler-tank bulk would allow him, but as he announced “two” on his count-down to launch, a tanned face surrounded by a tangle ofblond dreadlocks popped up over the rail of the cockpit and a young man called, “Irie, mi crusty uncle, bringing us the jammin’ grinds, yeah? I and I tanks ye colossal, but please to be waiting on the dock.”
    And the Emperor stopped. Bummer and Lazarus even stopped growling and sat and turned their heads in the manner of a doggie listening for a “food” word amid a recitation of The Iliad .
    The young man vaulted over the black cowling of the cockpit and landed on the lower deck, his bare feet barely making a thump. He was lean and muscular, tanned a café au lait color, with a tattoo of a humpback whale on his right pectoral muscle. He wore board shorts, despite the chill Bay air, a gold ring in his nose, and a series of them chasing down the rim of each ear. His dreadlocks fanned out around his head and shoulders as if they might be sun serpents looking for a way to escape.
    He leapt the gap to the dock, dazzled a blindingly white grin, and snatched the remains of the sandwich out of the Emperor’s hand. “Ah, Jah’s love on ye, Uncle, bringing de rippin’ grinds to I’n’I after so long at sea.”
    Bummer barked and growled. The Rasta-blond had their sandwich.
    “Ah, me doggie, dreadies,” said the Rasta. “Jah’s blessings on ye.” He knelt and scratched Bummer behind the ears.
    The stranger smelled of coconut oil, weed, and the undead, and