Bite Me: A Love Story Chapter 11

11. existence the Chronicles of Abby Normal, Pathetic Failure to All Creatures Great and Sm on the whole(a)I provoke failed as a minion, a girlfriend, and a human being in general, and that doesnt until now shoot count Biology 102, which I am steady completely failing despite actually going to class twice.The Countess has been g adept for corresponding a week, and noneone has crackn her or the vampyre Flood. Ive gone take ining for them, in the main when Im supposed to be at school. I dont even k straightaway where to look. I kind of walk around enquire people if theyve machinery divulgen a whole hawt carrottop and they either hurry a means rattling fast or, in the case of one guy, who I suspect was a pimp, offered me a kibibyte dollars to bring her to him if I found her. Then he offered me a job, because he said, Johns go for that skinny Lolita shit.And I was all, Oh, thats very flattering, sir. Thank you. Once I engender my friend I will bring her approve and well twain be happy to service the disgusting choads of creepy strangers and hand you all of our money a want with any self-worth we might call for left hand.And he was all, You do that, myopic momma. You do that.Which is exactly an some other reason that I sine qua non to find the Countess and beg her forgiveness, because my new phone has video and I cant await to post a c rim on my blog of Jody scattering fucking(a) pimp parts all everywhere the Tenderloin. (The Countess has lectured me ab bug out respecting myself and how a cleaning lady must never sacrifice her dignity to a man unless he gives her jewelry or is a smoking hottie and has a job, so I sound off in that respect will at least be mixed-up bones and a beating of many colors.)Evidently theres a shortage of hookers and homeless person people in the City, it was on the Chronicles Web site. They re aired it a equal(p) it was a good thing, VICE ARRESTS DOWN or something, and another obligate more than or les s homeless shelters having plenty of elbow room for the branch clock metre, ever. OMFG Theyre kitty treats, you cleanse nozzles Thats why I refused to be on the school paper. Journalists are unaware to the obvious and they wont even let you say fuck.Kayso, when I finally got suffer to the call for a go at it lair, the windows were all boarded up with plywood and Foo and Jared had handle alphabetized all of the rats and had them stacked up and labeled and whatnot. So, I, like, ran into Foos arms and kissed him a good long time, past I looked around and I was allTheyre dead. Our loft is broad(a) of dead rats.And Jared is all, Not dead. Undead.So to Foo Im all, Splain, sil vous plat.And Foos like, Its amazing, Abby. You just have to inject them with a little vampyre blood and it turns them, but not until you kill them. It took us a while to figure that out.So you killed all these rats?I did, goes Jared. It made me sad, but Im okay with it now. Science.How?And Foo says, Pot assium chloride.At the exact same time Jared says, With a hammer.And Jared gets all big scared anime eyes and is like, Yeah, potassium chloride. Thats what I meant.And Im all, You have been killing and vamping rats while the Countess and Tommy are lost and the whole city is papered with missing cat flyers, and like Chet and his minions are eating all the homeless and probably the hookers?And they were like, Well-yeah.And I had to work and go to class, says Foo. And polish my car.And Jareds all, And weve been making fair weather jackets for those two cops, which takes like a million little equips. And he, like, points to our coffee table, which is the provided surface that doesnt have cages full of dead rats, and theres not even jackets there, just, like, jacket-shaped nets of wire with little glass beads all everyplace them.And Im all, Cops cant wear those. They look like robot lingerie.And Jared is all, Trs cool, non?No I go. And do not advertize endorken the French language by wrapping your disgusting penis port around it. Youll ruin the whole language earlier I even learn enough to express my deep despondency and dark desires en franais, you rat smasher.Kay, I know that was a little harsh, but I was angry, and in my defense, I was grinding Foos leg a little when I said dark desires, so I said it with love.Foos all, We didnt have time to actually get jackets. They lack to be leather and theyre expensive.So its enlighten that despite his mad ninja science skills, even my beloved Foo cannot be left without female supervision. But he has been going home lately, and his parents are a bad influence on him.So Im like, I got this. Ill go see Lily.Lily is my backup BFF. She used to be my BFF, but at the same time I met Lord Flood and the Countess, Lily got a book in the get mess at her work, which is Ashers Secondhand, and it convinced her that she is Death, so Im all, Whatever, ho.And she was all, Free to live my own nightmare, skank.So we were cool.Ka yso, I took the 45 bus from the dead-ratted love lair to North Beach. walking through Chinatown sort of creeps me out cause of all the Chinese grandmothers on the street, who Im pretty sure are talking about me because they think I have ruined Foo with my Gothy-Anglo charms. Also, I get mad dim rundown cravings for which I should some solar day seek treatment, or, like, snacks.Kayso, at Ashers, Lily comes out from behind the prognosticate and gives me a hug and a big kiss on my eyebrow (because she is taller than me in addition to having surplus boobage).And Im like, theres a big empurpled lip print on my fore passport, huh?And Lily goes, Kiss of Death-get used to it, beyotch-matches your hair tips, trs sluee.So Im all, Kay. It wasnt really the kiss of Death, but it did match my tips. Then I was all, Lils, I pick up mens leather jackets in these sizes. I gave her the note Foo wrote out with the sizes and cut and whatnot.And she was all, WTF, Abs? Fifty long? You buying a jac ket for an orca?Ginormous man cop. You got it?Yeah. You wanna smoke a clove?And Im all, Do you have enough violet lipstick? Because smoking is, like, the worst for your lipstick and it did match my hair.And shes all, Bitch, please. Meaning, Do I ever not have enough tillerup? Which is true, because Lily carries a polyvinyl chloride ROBOT PIRATES messenger bag you could hide a small chela in, only she carries beauty products.So I was all, Kay.So Lily and I went out the back door and stared at the Dumpster like it was the very abyss of our despair while we smoked. And Im just getting ready to tell her about the love lair, and Foo, and vampyre kitties and all, because Ive sort of been in boyfriend mode, so, like, out of contact, which Lily totally gets.And Lils like, So, the big frolicsome cop have a Hispanic partner?And Im like, Rivera and Cavuto. Crusty day dwellers, but Rivera kind of has a secret-agent vibe. You know them?And Lily is all, Yeah, they were here yesterday. Rivera wears expensive suits. Smells good, too. Id do him.And Im like gagging. Lils, hes like a thousand years old, and a cop. The Motherbot was getting squishy everyplace him. OMG Youre disgustingShut up, Im not saying Id do him normal. I mean like zombie Apocalypse trapped in the mall right before we have to shoot each other to keep them from eating our brains and turning us to the undead-then Id do him.So Im all, Oh sure, then. To make her feel better, because she doesnt have a BF and often oversluts to compensate, but I still thought it was disgusting. But to change the subject, I was all, So what did they want?They were asking all kinds of irrelevant bullshit. Had I seen any strange cats, did I see the Emperor, or some redhead.And Im all, Fucksocks Fucksocks Fucksocks inside. But on the outside Im all palpitation and Im like, So, you like didnt know anything, right?No, Asher said a hot redhead came into the store the other night, and then I was on the machine politicianle car las t night, going down to Maxs Deli for a sammy, and I think I saw her going into the Fairmont Hotel. Like a crazy pall of long red curls I would slaughter puppies for.Red leather jacket?Sweet red leather jacket.You didnt tell them, did you?And Lils all, Well, yeah.And I was all, You traitorous fancy woman And I punched her in the shoulder.In my defense, youre supposed to tell your ex-BFF when you get pert ink, so the screaming was completely over the top. I had no way of knowing that she had a new tattoo on that shoulder, so her punching me in the boob was totally uncalled for.So, Im ouching trs loud and this Russian lady from upstairs peeks her head out the window and shes all, Quiet please, is sounding like burning entertain out there.Kayso, Lils and I start to laugh and say, Like bear, over and over again until the Russian lady slams the window shut, like bear.Then it comes back to me and Im all, Lils, I have to get those jackets and get to the Fairmont. I have to survive the Countess.And Lily is like, Kay, not even asking details, which is why I love her-she is so nihilist its, like, not funny.Kayso, I take the jackets and catch a cab to the Fairmont, which totally pisses off the cabbie because its only like six blocks, but when I get to the hotel Im all, Fucksocks because Im too late.JODY Falling asleep was one of the things Jody missed about being human. She missed the satisfied, tired feeling of falling into bed and be adrift off in a dreamingy twilight sea of dreams. In fact, since shed turned, unless shed just gone too long without feeding, she never even tangle tired. On most mornings, unless she and Tommy had been making love, and they went out in each others arms, she just found a relatively leisurely position and waited for the sun to deck up and say her out. Maybe a flutter of an eyelid, lasting a second, then off like a light.The closest thing to a dream state shed experienced as a vampire was when shed gone to veil inside the bronze s tatue, and even then, the door into dreamland slammed shut at dawn. The constant alertness of being a vampire was, well, it was a turn of events irritating. Especially since shed been searching the City for Tommy for a week, pushing her jumped-up senses to their limits, and had to issuance to the hotel every morning with nothing. Apparently, Tommy had limped down an alley and vanished. Shed checked everyplace in the City that shed ever taken him, every place hed ever been, as far as she knew, and still there was no evidence of his having been there. Shed hoped she would have some special vampire sixth sense to help her find him, like the old vampire who had turned her seemed to have had, but no.Now, she was returning to her room at the Fairmont for the seventh morning. And for the seventh morning she would disgorge out the Do Not Disturb signs, lock the door, put on her sweats, drink a pouch of the blood she kept locked in a mini-cooler, brush her teeth, then crawl down the stai rs the bed and go over a mental map of the City until dawn put her out. (Since she was technically dead at dawn, sleeping on top of a comfortable mattress was a dangerous luxury, and by climbing under the bed she put one more layer between her and sunlight, should a nosy maiden somehow find a way into her room.)Part of her new pre-dawn religious rite had been returning to the hotel a little later each morning like the skydiver who will let himself fall closer and closer to earth before pulling the ripcord to boost the adrenaline rush just a little more. The last two mornings shed just been entering the hotel when the alarm spotter she wore, which was groom to go off ten proceeding before sunrise on any given day, based on an electronic almanac, had started beeping. Shed bought one for Tommy, too, and wondered if he was still draining his. As she strode down California Street, she tried to cerebrate if hed been wearing it when they cut him out of the bronze shell.Two blocks from t he Fairmont her alarm watch went off and she couldnt help but smile a little at the thrill. She picked up her pace, figuring that shed still be safely inside her room with time to spare before sunup, but she might have to precede the sweats and the blood snack.As she came up the steps into the lobby she smelled cigar, and Aramis cologne, and the combination sent an electric chill of alarm up her spine before she could identify the danger. Cops. Rivera and Cavuto. Rivera smelled of Aramis, Cavuto of cigars. She stopped, her reboot heels skidding a little on the marble steps.There they were, both at the front desk, but a bellman was jumper lead them to the elevator. He was taking them to her room.How? she thought. Doesnt matter. It was getting light. She checked her watch three minutes to find shelter. She backed away from the door, out onto the sidewalk, then began to run.Normally she would have paced herself so someone didnt notice the redhead in boots and jeans running hot tha n an Olympic sprinter, but theyd just have to tell their friends and not be believed. She needed cover, now.She was a block and a half down mason Street when she came to an alley. Shed survived her first night as a vampire under a Dumpster. Maybe she could survive the day inside one. But there was someone down there, the kitchen crew of a restaurant, outside smoking. On she ran.No alleys in the next two blocks, then a narrow lieu between buildings. Maybe she could shimmy down there and crawl in a basement window. She crawled on a narrow, plywood gate and had one foot down before a pit bull came storming down the corridor. She leapt out onto the sidewalk and started running again. What kind of psychopath uses a two-foot-wide station between buildings as a dog run? There should be laws.This was Nob Hill, all open, with wide boulevard streets, a once-grand neighborhood now made incredibly irritating to a vampire in need of shelter. She rounded the corner at Jackson Street, snapping a heel off her right boot as she did. She should have worn sneakers, she knew, but wearing the high, expensive leather boots made her feel a little like a superhero. It turned out that turning your ankle hurts like hell, even if youre a superhero.She was up on her toes now, running, limping toward Jackson Square, the oldest neighborhood in San Francisco that had survived the great quake and fire of 1906. There were all kinds of little cubbyholes and basement shops in the old brick buildings down there. One building even had the ribs of a sailing ship in its basement, a remnant built over when the Gold Rush left so many ships abandoned at the waterfront that the City literally expanded over them.One minute. The shadow of the Transamerica profit was lying long across the neighborhood ahead like the beset of a deadly sundial. Jody did a final kick-sprint, snapping off her other boot heel as she did. She scanned the streets ahead for windows, doors, trying to sense movement inside, looking at for stillness, privacy.There On the left, a door below street level, the stair-case isolated by a wrought-iron railing covered in jasmine. Ten more steps and Im there, she thought. She saw herself jumping the rail, shouldering through the door, and diving under the first thing that would shelter her from the light.She took the final three steps and leapt just as the sun broke the horizon. She went limp in the air, fell to the sidewalk, short of the stairwell, and skidded on her shoulder and face. As her eyes fluttered, the last thing she saw were a pair of orange socks right in front of her, then she went out and began to smolder in the sunlight.