Bite Me

flesh on contact—a heinous, herbal mixture that someone in China had discovered hundreds of years ago. A weak UV light on the front of the weapons held the animals in solid form long enough for the pellets to impact. The pellets would injure a human vampire, but they were devastating to a feline. The Chinese had somehow tuned it to the cats. They had used the mixture to contain every outbreak since its discovery. Rolf remembered firing it from crossbows.
    Rolf keyed his cell phone, then called the emergency number and reported a man being attacked by a giant cat. Then he set up the bipod on his rifle, zeroed the twenty-power scope in on one of the swans under a eucalyptus tree, and lay down to wait.
    Seven minutes later the police cruiser arrived. They were both fresh-faced young men with bright pink life auras. From his rooftop, four blocks away, Rolf could just make out the squawking of their radios. They knew nothing. They panned their flashlights under the bushes surrounding the pond, and he watched them shake their heads to one another.
    Seventeen minutes after the call, the brown unmarked car pulled up and Rolf relaxed into his shooting posture.These were the two from the night before. The big red dog. The dog looked his way, briefly, then dragged the big cop down to a tree by the pond.
    He put the crosshairs on the thinner cop’s face. But no, a headshot was arrogant. He had to make two shots, very quickly, so he would go for the center of their bodies. Shoot the thin cop first, then pan to the big one. A bigger target. Even if his first shot didn’t kill him, it would drop him.
    He waited, waited for them to get clear of the car and the cover. The thin cop was walking toward the other one, then stopped to take a phone call. Rolf put the crosshairs over his heart and began to squeeze the trigger.
    Then the entire side of his head seemed to explode with pain and he screamed and grabbed at the flames that were shooting out of his empty eye socket.
    TOMMY
    “Are we doing this right?” Tommy asked. They were several blocks behind Rolf, who was moving so smoothly and easily through the Marina district that Tommy would have thought he lived there and was out for his evening jog. Except that no one in the Marina would be wearing a black duster. It would either be cashmere or Gore-Tex, business or fitness. The Marina was a rich, fit neighborhood.
    “We’re following him,” said Abby. “How many ways can you do that?”
    Jody was leading them. She held up a hand for them to stop. The blond vampire had stopped at the corner of a four-story apartment building and was scaling it using just the space between the bricks as handholds.
    Tommy looked around and spotted a flat-roofed building down the alley. “That one has a fire escape. We’ll be above him, we can watch him.”
    “I don’t think watching is going to be enough,” Jody said.
    “He looks badass,” said Abby.
    “He’s watching those cops over at the Palace.”
    “He won’t just shoot a cop,” said Tommy. “Why would he shoot a cop?”
    “Plain clothes unit pulling in,” Jody said. “It’s Rivera and Cavuto.”
    “And Marvin,” Abby said.
    “He knows they know,” said Tommy.
    “We need to go,” Jody said. “Abby, you have Rivera’s number?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Call him. Give me that laser thing.”
    “The light from their jackets magnified through the scope will work,” Tommy said.
    “Let’s go.” Jody ran to the edge of the roof and stopped.
    Abby hopped on her toes. “Spider-Man it, Countess.”
    “No fucking way,” Jody said, looking down just as Tommy ran by her and jumped across the alley to the next building.
    They were coming across the roof of a building a block away when they saw the side of the vampire’s head ignite and heard him scream. He rolled away from the gun, clawing at his face.
    “Too far,” Jody said. The final gap between roofs was over a full street, not an alley, and they were a floor lower than the blond vampire. “Down.”
    Without thinking, Tommy jumped, then said, “What the fuck did I just do?” He landed on the balls of his feet and went down to crouch, catching himself just as he was about to drive his knee into the concrete. He looked up. Jody was still on the roof.
    “C’mon, Red, I’m not going up there alone.”
    “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” she said, and then landed beside him and rolled.
    When he saw she wasn’t hurt, he said, “Graceful.”
    “He’s getting up,”