Bloodsucking fiends: a love story

that they freeze-dried Jesus, did you?"
    Lash checked his watch. "We've got less than six hours before it gets dark. Maybe we should get started."
    Tommy released Clint and the Emperor lowered his sword.
    "We need something to give Bummer the scent," the Emperor said. "Something that the fiend has touched."
    Tommy dug into his jeans pocket and pulled out one of the hundreds that Jody had given him. "I'm pretty sure that he touched this, but it's been a while."
    The Emperor took the hundred and held it to Bummer's nose. "It shouldn't matter. His senses are keen and his heart is righteous." To Bummer he said, "This is the scent, little one. Find this scent."
    He put Bummer down and the little dog was off with a yap and a snort. The vampire hunters followed, losing sight of Bummer as he rounded the store. When they came around to the front of the store, the manager was coming out, holding a snarling Bummer in his arms.
    "Flood, is this your dog?"
    "He's his own man," the Emperor said.
    "Well, he just ran in and blew snot all over the cash in register eight. You train him to find money?"
    The Emperor looked down to the hundred-dollar bill in his hand, then at Tommy. "Perhaps we should find something else to put him on the scent."
    "Where was the last place you saw the vampire?" Tommy asked.
    The gate guard at the Saint Francis Yacht Club wasn't buying a word of it.
    "Really," Tommy said. "We're here to decorate for the Christmas party." The Animals waved their gaily wrapped weapons to illustrate the point. "And the Archbishop has come along to perform midnight mass." Tommy pointed to Clint, who grinned and winked through his thick glasses.
    "Deus ex machina," Clint said, exhausting his Latin. "Shalom," he added for good measure.
    The guard tapped his clipboard. "I'm sorry, gentlemen, I can't let you through without a membership or a guest pass."
    The Emperor cleared his throat royally. "Good man, each moment you delay may be paid for with human suffering."
    The guard thought that he might have just been threatened, hoped, in fact, that he had, so he could pull his gun, and was just letting his hand drop to his gun belt when the phone in the gate booth rang.
    "Stay here," he instructed the vampire hunters. He answered the phone and nodded at it, then looked across Marina Boulevard to where a brown Dodge was parked. He hung up the phone and came out of the booth.
    "Go on in," he said, obviously not happy about it. He pushed a button, the gate rose, and the Animals went in, headed for the East Harbor. Two minutes later the brown Dodge pulled up and stopped by the gate. Cavuto rolled down the window and flashed his badge.
    "Thanks," he said to the guard. "I'll keep an eye on them for you."
    "No problem," said the guard. "You ever get to shoot anyone?"
    "Not today." Cavuto said. He drove though the gate, staying just out of sight of the Animals.
    At the end of the dock the Animals and the Emperor stared forlornly at the big white motor yacht moored a hundred yards out into the harbor. Bummer was in the midst of a yapping fit.
    "You see," said the Emperor, "he knows that the fiend is aboard."
    "You're sure that's the boat that he came off of?"
    "Most definitely. It chills my spine to think of it – the mist forming into a monster."
    "That's great," Tommy said, "but how do we get aboard?" He turned to Barry, who was applying sunscreen to his bald spot. "Can you swim it?"
    "We could all swim it," Barry said. "But how do we keep the gun dry? I could go get my Zodiac and take us all out there, but it'll take a while."
    "How long?"
    "Maybe an hour."
    "We've got four, maybe five hours until sunset," Lash said.
    "Go," Tommy said. "Get it."
    "No, wait," said Drew, looking at the rows of yachts in the nearby slips. "Jeff, can you swim?"
    The big power forward shook his head. "Nope."
    "Good," Drew said. He took the Christmas-paper-wrapped shotgun from Jeff, then grabbed him by the arm and threw him into the water. "Man overboard! Man overboard! We need a boat."
    The few owners and crew members who were performing maintenance on the nearby boats looked up. Drew spotted a good-sized life raft on the stern of a sixty-footer. "There, you guys, get that."
    The Animals scrambled after the raft. The yacht's crew helped them get it over the side into the water.
    Jeff, flailing in the water, had slapped his way back to the dock. Drew pushed him away with the shotgun. "Not yet, big guy." Over his shoulder he shouted, "Hurry, you guys! He's