Jody awoke to the smell of clove cigarettes and the crunching of Cheese Newts. There was music screeching, too-a whiny guy singing about some girl named Ligeia, who apparently he missed a great deal because he was talking about dragging her worm-worn corpse from the earth and caressing her cheek on a cliff above the sea before throwing himself off, with her in his arms. The singer sounded a little down, and like he could have used a throat lozenge.
She opened her eyes and was initially blinded until she adjusted to the black light, then she yelped. Jared White Wolf was sitting on the bed about two feet away from her, shoving handfuls of crunchy Cheese Newts into his mouth. There was a brown rat on his shoulder.
"Hi." Newt crumbs sprayed and fluoresced on the black sheets and clothing.
"Hi," Jody said, turning her head to avoid the crumbs.
"This is my room. Do you like it?"
Jody looked around, for once not really that thrilled with her vampire night-vision abilities. There were disturbing stains glowing on the sheets, and almost everything else in the room was black with a patina of vibrant blacklight-enhanced dust or lint-there was even lint on the rat.
"It"s swell," she said. Interesting, Interesting, she thought. She was no longer afraid of gang members and street criminals, and would even throw down with an eight-hundred-year-old vampire if need be, but rodents still sort of gave her the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. The rat"s eyes were glowing silver in the black light. she thought. She was no longer afraid of gang members and street criminals, and would even throw down with an eight-hundred-year-old vampire if need be, but rodents still sort of gave her the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. The rat"s eyes were glowing silver in the black light.
"This is Lucifer Two." Jared scooped the animal off his shoulder and held him out.
Despite an attempt at self-control, Jody climbed backwards halfway up the wall, shredding a Marilyn Manson poster with her nails in the process.
"Lucifer One went on to his dark reward when I tried to dye him black."
"Sad," Jody said.
"Yeah." Jared turned the rat and rubbed noses with him. "I was hoping we could turn him to nosferatu when you bring Abby and me into the fold."
"Yeah, sure, that"ll happen. Why am I in your room, Jared?"
"It was the only place we could think to bring you. It wasn"t safe under the bridge. Abby had to go, so I"m in charge."
"Good for you. Where"s Tommy?"
"Under the bed."
She would have known that-would have heard him breathing if the music wasn"t cranked up to coffin-splitting volume.
"Could you turn the music down a little, please?"
""Kay," Jared said. He tucked Lucifer Two in his pocket and spidered across the bed, getting a little tangled in his black duster, then rolled to the floor and across the room in a commando-under-fire move until he got to the stereo, where he twisted the dial, putting the keening Emo singer out of his misery, or at least shutting him the f.u.c.k up.
"Where are we?" Tommy"s voice from under the bed. "It smells like gym socks stuffed with ground-up hippies."
"We"re in Jared"s room," Jody said. She let a hand drop off the edge of the bed. Tommy took it and she pulled him out. He was still partially wrapped in duct tape and garbage bags.
"Was I a hostage again?"
"We had to cover you up to keep you from burning in the sun."
"Well, thanks."
Tommy looked at Jody, who shrugged.
"I was unwrapped when I woke up," she said.
"That"s because Abby says you"re the Alpha vamp. Do you guys want to play Xbox or watch a DVD? I have The Crow Special Collector"s Edition The Crow Special Collector"s Edition."
"Gee," Jody said, "that would be great, Jared, but we"d better be going."
Tommy had already picked up the Xbox controller, but set it down with marked disapproval, as if he"d notice a little botulism there on the trigger b.u.t.ton.
"Oh, you can"t go until the "rents go to bed." Jared giggled, high and girlish. "The door is right by where they watch TV."
"We"ll go out a window," Jody said.
Jared giggled again, then snorted a little, then started to honk, then took a hit from the inhaler that hung around his neck before he went on. "There"s no window. This bas.e.m.e.nt is totally windowless. Like we"ve been walled up in here with our own grotesque despair. Isn"t it sweet?"
"We could go to mist," Tommy said. "Go out under the door."
"That would be so cool," Jared said, "but my dad put rubber gaskets around the door to contain my disgusting Goth stench. That"s what he calls it: my "disgusting Goth stench." Although I don"t think I"m really Goth, more like death punk. He just doesn"t like cloves. Or pot. Or patchouli. Or gay people."
"Philistine," Tommy said.
"Oh, would you guys like some Cheese Newts?" Jared picked the box up off the floor and held it out. "I can open a vein on them if you need me to." He waved the thumb Abby had stabbed to prepare their coffee the night before, now wrapped in a ragged ball of gauze and medical tape the size of a racquetball.
"I"m good," Tommy said.
Jody nodded in agreement; although she would love a cup of coffee, she didn"t think she should ask the kid to stab himself quite so soon.
She checked her watch. "What time do your parents go to bed?"
"Oh, around ten. You"ll have plenty of time to stalk the night and whatnot. Would you like to wash up or something? There"s a bathroom down here. And a washing machine. My room was the wine celler, then my dad crashed his car and started twelve-stepping, so I got this sweet room for my own. Abby says it"s dank and disgusting-and she says it like it"s a bad thing! I think it"s just her perky side manifesting. I love her, but she really can be perky sometimes-don"t tell her I said so."
Jody shook her head, then nudged Tommy, who shook his head in agreement. "We won"t tell." The kid was sort of giving her the creeps. She thought she might have lost that ability with blood drinking and the sleep of the undead and all, but nope, she was getting completely creeped out.
"Jared, when is Abby coming back?"
"Oh, she should be here any minute. She went to your loft to feed the cat."
"She went to our loft? The loft where Elijah was?"
"No, it"s okay. She went during daylight so he couldn"t hurt her."
"It"s not daylight anymore," Jody said.
"How do you know?" Jared said "No windows, duh."
Tommy Stooge-smacked his forehead with enough force to render a mortal man unconscious. "Because we"re awake, you f.u.c.king moron!"
"Oh yeah, ha," Jared said. The trilling giggle again. "That"s bad, huh?"
25.
They Know Not What They Do When Rivera and Cavuto arrived at the Safeway, they found that the remaining Animals had crucified Clint on a stainless-steel chip rack and were shooting him with paintball guns. Lash unlocked the door to let them in. The Emperor and his men followed. Clint"s screaming sent b.u.mmer into a barking fit and the Emperor s.n.a.t.c.hed him up and stuffed him headfirst into the pocket of his overcoat.
"That really necessary?" Rivera asked, pointing to the paint-splattered martyr.
"We think so," Lash said. "He ratted us out." Lash turned, sighted down the pa.s.s-through of register three, and fired a quick volley of electric-blue paintb.a.l.l.s into the center of Clint"s chest. "Did he call you again?"
Rivera threw a thumb over his shoulder at the Emperor.
The Emperor bowed. "You needed help, my son."
Lash nodded, considering that the Emperor might be right, then reeled and fired three quick shots into Clint"s groin. "Just the same, motherf.u.c.ker!"
"Stop that!" Rivera said. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the paintball gun out of Lash"s hand.
"It"s cool. He"s wearing a cup."
"And he"s saved," said Barry, who had been firing from register four.
"Well, he is now," Cavuto said. As he approached the paint-sodden Evangelical, he pulled a serrated-edge pocket knife from his back pocket and flicked it open. "And just so you know," Cavuto added when his back was to them, "if I turn and there"s a single paintball gun pointed in this direction, I will be forced to mistake it for a real weapon and unleash lead Disneyland on your pathetic a.s.ses."
Barry and Troy Lee immediately dropped their weapons onto the counter.
"So, the Emperor tells us that you guys have been up to some s.h.i.t. I thought we all agreed that we were going to keep it on the down-low until things calmed down."
Lash looked at his shoes. "We just had a little party in Vegas."
Rivera nodded. "And you kidnapped Tommy Flood?"
Lash glared over Rivera"s shoulder at the Emperor. "That was a secret. Really we were saving him from the daylight."
"So the redhead did turn him?"
"Looked like it. He was unconscious at dawn. Just a little sunlight hit his leg when we were moving him and it started to smoke."
"So you geniuses did what?"
"Well, we tied him to a bed at my apartment and left."
"You left?"
"We had to work."
Cavuto had cut the zip ties that held Clint to the chip rack and helped him to the register, where he sat him down, careful not to get any paint on his sport coat.
"Forgive them, they know not what they do," Clint said, wincing as he touched his paint-spattered shoulder.
"Because they"re f.u.c.king idiots," Cavuto said, handing him a roll of paper towels.
Rivera ignored the scene at the register. "So you just left him there. So I"ll find him there now, right?"
"That was a couple of nights ago," Lash said.
"Go on." Rivera looked at his watch.
"Well, in the morning he was gone."
"And?"
"It"s awkward." For variety, Lash looked at Barry"s shoes.
"Yeah, tying up your friends and torturing them can be that way," Rivera said.
"We didn"t torture him. That was her."
"Her?" Rivera raised an eyebrow.
"Blue. A hooker we rented in Vegas."
"Now we"re talkin"," Cavuto said.
"She came back with us. She wanted us to kidnap Tommy or his girlfriend."
"Why did she want that? To get their share of the art money?"
"No, she had plenty of money. I think she wanted to be a vampire."
Rivera tried to hide his surprise. "And?"
"When we went back to the apartment in the morning, Tommy was gone and Blue was dead."
"We had nothing to do with it," Barry added.
"But we didn"t think you"d believe it," Troy Lee said.
Rivera felt a tension headache starting to throb in his temples. He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. "So you found a dead woman in your apartment. And you didn"t think that then then might be a good time to call the police?" might be a good time to call the police?"
"Well, you know, dead hooker in your house-embarra.s.sing," Troy Lee said. "I think we"ve all been there. Can I get a high five-" Apparently, he couldn"t, and was thus left hanging.
"That"s the weird thing," Barry said. "When we went to move her body, it was gone. But the rug we wrapped her in was still there."
"Yeah, that"s the weird thing," Cavuto said, nudging his partner in the arm.