You Suck: A Love Story

us about, that kidnapped you, a bunch of them are vampires now. And there’s a tall woman vampire, too, who tried to bite Abs. And Abby totally took them all on and burned them up with some kind of portable sunlight. Oh my God, she’s so awesome. I wish I had balls like her.”
    “Where is she now?” Jody asked.
    “She’s having a Mochaccino at Tulley’s on Market. I loaned her like twenty dollars. Which she’s going to pay me back out of her Christmas bonus you’re giving her. Hey, do I get a Christmas bonus, because-”
    “Call her and tell her to stay right where she is,” Jody said. “We’re on our way.”
    “We are?” Tommy said. They could get out of here, find a-a donor! “No, not you,” Jody said. “We are.” She patted Jared on the shoulder, careful not to get her hand near the rat.
    “We are?” Jared said.
    “Yes, Jared, you have to come out to your parents. You have to confess that you’ve had a girl in your room all day. We’ll walk up and you can just introduce me as your girlfriend.”
    “Okay. I guess. You might want to borrow some eyeliner and touch up your lipstick a little first, okay?”
    “I will slap the gloom off of you, rat shagger,” Jody said with a smile that was just a few degrees below being warm.
    O ver his very long life, Elijah Ben Sapir had been hunted, beaten, tortured, drowned, impaled, imprisoned, and even burned on two occasions-tolerance for those who live off the lifeblood of others being what it is-but in eight centuries, this was the first time he had been flash-fried by a tricked-out Honda. Despite the novelty of it, when novelty had just become his new joy, he figured that if he went another eight hundred years before it happened again, he’d be okay.
    Creeping down a SOMA alley, snatching rats from behind Dumpsters and draining them to dust just so he could heal himself enough to hunt a real victim, was serving as an abject lesson as to why he and his kind were sworn to remain concealed. It was bound to happen: the application of new technology for the detection and destruction of vampires. Hadn’t he adopted technology to protect himself? His self-piloting yacht with its sensors and sealed vault had served him as well as any guarded castle. But he’d forgotten the rule-not forgotten, really, but ignored it-deciding to indulge in hope, to the point of faith, that he would always prevail. So some clever cow had figured out how to package sunlight and unleash it upon his arrogant carcass. The cow would never have found the solution had the vampire not shown him the problem. Humbled was Elijah, and angry, and hungry, and a little sad, because he had loved his yellow tracksuit, and now it was but beads of blackened polyester burned into his skin.
    He picked at them as he listened for prey, tucked between a Dumpster and a white step-van full of bread racks. Here came one now-fat enough to complete the healing, Elijah could tell by the weight of his step. The back door of the bakery opened and the rotund baker stepped out and shook a cigarette out of his pack. His life aura was pink and healthy, his heart thumped strong, and would for a long time if Elijah did not suck it dry. Normally he only took the sick and the weak, those who were short for the grave anyway, but this was a desperate time. He leapt on the big man’s back and rode him to the ground, catching his scream in one hand, using the other to hit pressure points in his neck that had the baker unconscious in two seconds.
    Elijah drank, listening to his blackened skin crackle, slough, and heal, even as the baker still breathed.
    There would be no neck snap, no body to find this time. He dumped the dust from the baker’s clothes and slipped into them. His white Nikes were the only survivors of his previous outfit, so he threw the baker’s clogs into the Dumpster along with his wallet, pocketed the cash, and took off, dressed in white from head to foot.
    The vampire smiled to himself, not with joy, but with the grim irony of the situation. People often speak of things coming to them in a flash of inspiration, but the cliche held new meaning for Elijah. The flash meant that the game was over, that his foray into human desire, even for revenge, had gone far enough, and now it was time for damage control. They all had to die. He wouldn’t enjoy killing her. Not her.
    A fter being burned up for the second time in two days, Blue was ready for a healing massacre-a bloodbath-but the Animals had