Bite Me

merging might have ruined me.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you’re lying there completely naked and I don’t want to sex you up.”
    “Really?”
    “Let me think about it. No, false alarm, I’m okay.”
    “C’mere, writer boy. Let’s break some furniture.”
    THE RAVEN
    “Praise Jah’s sweet love for given us a fired-haired snowy biscuit,” Kona said. “Welcome, me sweet deadie sistah. Welcome aboard.”
    “Mistress,” Jody said. “Sweet deadie mistress.”
    “Troot, mistress. Welcome aboard.”
    The ship was a wonder of technology and luxury. Kona had lent Foo Dog his security bracelet and Foo had gone aboard and reset the security so the ship didn’t kill anyone who set foot on board, then he and Kona had walked her through the ship showing her the thousand different ways it had been set to kill a person. It was an elegant, redundant death trap.
    “You’ll want to turn the systems back on,” Foo had said. “There’s a reason they had this kind of security.”
    Jody said good-bye and led him off the ship. Now that she had one of his UV lasers in one hand and a number of vacuum blood vials in the other she followed the ersatz Rastaman down to the deepest chamber of the ship, where Foo had not gone. They approached a wide, white, waterproof hatch with a small porthole and a heavy stainless-steel wheel securing it.
    Kona hit a light switch. “That make just a wee UV, mistress. Make dat dogheart bastid turn solid so he can’t sneak out.”
    Jody looked in the port and a face hit it with a snarl, leaving bloody spit on the thick glass.
    “Well, hello, pumpkin. How have you been?”
    The vampire snarled. It was Elijah, the old vampire who had turned her, turned them all, really, if the legend was true. But he looked like a wild animal now, naked, his fangs bared, snarling at the tiny window.
    “Can he hear me?” Jody asked.
    “Oh yeah, he hear. You got to tell him to go to the back of da room, ma. I’n’I can lock him back there with the second door. Like an airlock. Dat’s how we feed dat old buggah.”
    “Go to the back of the room, Elijah. I have something I need you to do.”
    The vampire snarled at her.
    “Okey dokey,” she said, and she put on her sunglasses, placed Foo’s laser against the glass, and promptly blasted Elijah’s right ear into ash.
    He roared at her.
    “Oh, I know that had to hurt. Hear that high whining sound, Elijah. That’s the laser recharging. Takes about a minute. When it’s done I’m going to burn off your willie unless you get your ancient ass to the back of the cell.” She smiled.
    “Shoots, brah, she a cold heart bitch don’t you know. You outta-shoulda do what she say, yeah?”
    The old vampire backed through the inside door, snarling, and Kona worked the switch, sealing it. Then he opened the heavy outer hatch.
    Jody placed the vacuum vials in the chamber, then said, “Okay, Elijah, I need you to fill these with that sweet, first-generation vampire blood.”
    They sealed the outer hatch, and Elijah snarled and resisted, but after having his other ear burned off, relented. Twenty minutes later Jody was holding the four vials of Elijah’s blood and Elijah was lapping two quarts of tuna blood out of a stainless-steel bowl.
    “He be all right,” Kona said. “Dem ear heal up in minutes and he be back in the mystic fo’ weeks.”
    “And how long to get the rest of the art supplies onto the Raven ?” she asked.
    “It’s all on board, mistress.”
    “Then cast off, Cap’n.”
    “Aye, aye, mistress.”
    Jody turned to Okata, who had stood silently, his eyes wide, watching the whole scene.
    “These are for you,” she said, holding out the vials. “I’ll help you. I hope you like night scenes. You’re going to have a lot of prints to make. But you’ll have time.”
    “Okay,” said the swordsman, with a smile.

25
Being the Chronicles of Abby Normal, Failed Nosferatu, Heartbroken Day Dweller, and Deposed Backup Mistress of the Greater Bay Area Darkness
    M y heady powers of the night are gone, my manga-haired love monkey with a most fly ride is gone, even my tail is gone—worst of all, the Countess is gone. We watched her sail off just before dawn, the Rastafarian imbecile piloting the Raven out past Alcatraz as we stood there on the dock.
    Then Rivera and Cavuto came blazing up in their shit-brown cop-mobile and jumped out of the car, all “We have totally watched a number of cop shows and now know how to look urgent.”
    And Cavuto is