Bloodsucking fiends: a love story

darlin'. Just come right out and say it."
    "Sorry, Simon, but when someone has a gun on me and tells me he's going to rape me, I forget my manners."
    "Ain't going to be no rape unless you want it. The other thing is more important."
    "Other thing?"
    "I want you to change me into a vampire."
    "No, you don't, Simon. You don't know what it's like."
    "I don't need to know, darlin'. I know I'm going to die if you don't. It ain't just HIV anymore, it's full-blown. I can hardly get my boots on and off from the sores. The doctor's got me on enough pills to choke a horse. Now do it."
    Jody felt for him. For all his arrogant cowboy panache, she could tell he was afraid. "I don't know how, Simon. I don't know how I was changed. It just happened."
    He dug the barrel of the gun up under her breast and slid across the seat next to her. "You just bite my damn neck. Now do it!"
    "That doesn't work. That would just kill you. I don't know how to turn you into a vampire."
    Simon took the gun out of her ribs and held it against her thigh. "I'm going to count to three, then I'm going to shoot you in the leg if you don't start turning me. Then I'm going to count to three and shoot you in the other leg. I didn't want to do this, but you got to see."
    Jody could see tears welling up in Simon's eyes. He didn't want to do this, but she knew he would. She wondered even if she knew how to turn him if she would do it. "Simon, please, I really don't know how to turn you. Let me go. Maybe I'll find out."
    "I don't have the time, darlin'. If I have to trade the daylight for a lifetime of nights, I'll take the nights. I'm counting now. One!"
    "Simon, don't. Just wait."
    "Two!"
    Jody watched a tear roll out of his eye. She felt his body tense and looked down at the gun. The tendons in his hand were tightening. He was going to do it.
    "Three!"
    Jody shot out her right hand, palm open, and hit Simon under the chin while sweeping the gun away from her leg with her right. The gun went off, sending a bullet through the floorboard. The explosion covered the noise of Simon's neck snapping but she could feel the crunch against her palm. Simon slumped back in the seat, his head thrown back and mouth open as if he were frozen in a laugh. Over the ringing in her ears Jody could hear his last breath squeaking out of his lungs. The black aura around him faded away.
    She reached over and straightened his Stetson. "God, Simon, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
    Rivera drove. Cavuto sat in the passenger seat smoking and talking on the radio. He keyed the mike. "If anyone sees the Emperor tonight, detain him and call Rivera and Cavuto. He's wanted for questioning but he's not, I repeat not , a suspect. In other words, don't scare him."
    Cavuto hung the mike on the dash and said to Rivera, "You really don't think that this is a waste of time?"
    "Like I said, Nick, homicide and the coroner are the only ones who know about the blood loss. Our guys wouldn't leak, but even if there was a leak in the coroner's office, I can't imagine anyone telling the Emperor. Whoever did these murders is behaving like a vampire. Maybe he thinks he's a vampire. So to catch him, we have to pretend we're tracking a vampire."
    "That's bullshit. We've got enough evidence on the kid to get an indictment right now, and by the time forensics gets done with his apartment we'll have enough for a conviction."
    "Yeah," Rivera said, "except for one thing."
    Cavuto rolled his eyes. "I know, you don't think he killed anyone."
    "And neither do you."
    Cavuto chomped his cigar and looked out the car window at a group of winos milling on a corner by a liquor store.
    "Do you?" Rivera insisted.
    "He knows who did. And if I have to walk his cute little ass right up to the chair to get him to tell, I will."
    A call came over the radio. "Go ahead," Cavuto said into the mike.
    The dispatcher's voice crackled over the speaker. "Unit ten is holding the Emperor at Mason and Bay. Do you want them to bring him in?"
    Cavuto turned to Rivera and raised his eyebrows. "Well?"
    "No, tell them we'll be there in five."
    Cavuto keyed the mike. "Negative, we're on our way."
    Three minutes later Rivera pulled the unmarked Dodge into a red zone behind the cruiser. The two uniformed officers were playing with Lazarus and Bummer, whose armor rattled and clanged as they frisked. The Emperor stood by, his wooden sword still in hand.
    Rivera got out of the car first. "Good evening, Your Majesty."
    "Give me a fucking break," Cavuto said