Bite Me

not, noble 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 space.”
    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.
     
    S o, 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 fucking 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 fucking 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 plaît .”
    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 .”
    And I’m like, “You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?”
    And he’s all, “No, if you think, it doesn’t work. You haveto 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?