Bloodsucking Fiends

by Christopher Moore

  “He’s right,” Drew said. “We’re fucked. Anyone want to catch the ferry to Sausalito and terrorize some yuppie artists? I’ve got mushrooms.”

  “Shrooms! Shrooms! Shrooms!” the Animals chanted.

  Suddenly there was a staccato clanging, like someone banging on a garbage-can lid with a stick, which is pretty much what it was. The Emperor, who had been silent all night, stepped into the circle. “Before your spines go to jelly, men, take heart. I’ve been thinking.”

  “Oh, no!” someone shouted.

  “I think I have a way to find the fiend and dispose of him before sundown.”

  “Right,” Drew said sarcastically. “How?”

  The Emperor picked up Bummer and held out the little dog as if he were displaying the Holy Grail. “Pound for pound, a better soldier never marched, and a better tracker never sniffed out a sewer rat. I’ve been so stupid.”

  “Beg your pardon, Your Majesty,” Tommy said. “But what the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Until last night I didn’t know that the lovely young woman with whom you share your abode was a vampire. Yet every time we passed your building Bummer went into a frenzy. He’s been the same each time we’ve encountered the fiend himself. I believe he has a special sensitivity for the smell of vampires.”

  They all stared at him, waiting.

  “Gather your courage and your weapons, good fellows. We’ll meet here in two hours and remove this evil from my City. And a little dog shall lead us.”

  The Animals looked at Tommy, who shrugged and nodded. They had a new leader now. “Two hours, guys,” Tommy said. “The Emperor’s in charge.”

  Cavuto watched the Animals disperse though his field glasses. He was sitting in the parking lot at Fort Mason, a hundred yards from the Safeway. He put down the binoculars and dialed Rivera’s number on his cellular phone.

  “Rivera.”

  “Anything happening there?” Cavuto asked.

  “No, I don’t think that anything will now that it’s daylight. The lights stayed off after the kid left, but I could hear a vacuum cleaner running. The girl’s up there but she didn’t turn on the light.”

  “So she likes to clean in the dark.”

  “I think she can see in the dark.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Cavuto said. “Anything else?”

  “Not much. Some kids were dropping pebbles on me from the roof. The guys in the foundry below the kid’s apartment are moving around now. A couple of bums are doing some close-order public urinating in the alley. What’s happening there?”

  “The kid worked all night, drank some beers with the crew; they just split up but the kid and the wacko are still here.”

  “Why don’t you call in some relief?”

  “I don’t want this out of our hands until we know more. Stay by the phone.”

  “Anything from the coroner?”

  “Yeah, just got off the phone with him. Massive blood loss from the guy in the truck. None from the guy in the morgue. Heart attack. They still haven’t found the girl’s body.”

  “That’s because she was cleaning house all night.”

  “Gotta go,” Cavuto said.

  Tommy and the Emperor were waiting in the parking lot when the Animals returned in Troy Lee’s Toyota and began unloading equipment.

  “Stop, stop, stop,” Tommy said. “We can’t run all over the City with spear guns and swords.”

  “And shotguns,” Jeff said proudly, jacking a shell into the chamber of Simon’s shotgun.

  “Put that back in the car.”

  “No problem,” Drew said, holding up a roll of Christmas wrap. “Dallas, November 22, 1963.”

  “What?” Tommy said.

  “Lee Harvey Oswald walks into the book depository with a venetian blind. Minutes later Jackie’s scooping brains off the trunk of a Lincoln. Anybody asks, we’re all giving venetian blinds to our moms for Christmas.”

  “Oh,” Tommy said. “Okay.”

  Clint climbed out of the Toyota wearing a choir robe, a half dozen crosses hung around his neck. He held a Baggie full of crackers in one hand, a squirt gun in the other. “I’m ready,” he said to Tommy and the Emperor.

  “Snacks,” Tommy said, nodding to the Baggie. “Good thinking.”

  “The Heavenly Host,” Clint said. He brandished the squirt gun. “Loaded with holy water.”

  “That stuff doesn’t work, Clint.”

  “Oh ye of little faith,” Clint said.

  Bummer and Lazarus had left the Emperor’s side and were nosing up to Clint. “See, they know the power of the Spirit.”

  Just then Bummer jumped and snatched the Baggie, then took off around the corner of the store, followed closely by Lazarus, Clint, and the Emperor.

  “Stop him,” Clint shouted at an old man coming out of the store. “He’s taken the body of Christ.”

  “Don’t hurt him,” the Emperor shouted. “He’s the only hope for saving the City.”

  Tommy took off after them. As he passed the bewildered old man, Tommy said, “Last week they were playing cards with Elvis. What can I say?”

  The old man seemed to accept this and hurried off.

  Tommy caught up with them behind the store, where the Emperor was holding Bummer in one hand and fending off Clint with his wooden sword with the other, while Lazarus licked the last few crumbs out of the torn plastic bag.

  “He ate the blessed Saviour!” Clint wailed. “He ate the blessed Saviour!”

  Tommy caught Clint around the waist and pulled him away. “It’s okay, Clint. Bummer’s a Christian.”

  Jeff rounded the corner, his size-fourteen Reeboks clomping like a quarter horse. He looked at the empty Baggie. “Oh, I get it. They freeze-dried him, right?”

  Drew came around the corner, followed by Lash and Troy Lee.

  “Do we have a partying platoon, or what?” Drew said.

  Jeff said, “I never knew 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 y
ou 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 drowning!”

  Tommy, Barry, and Lash were paddling the rubber raft for all they were worth. The yachtsmen and the Emperor shouted instructions, while Drew and Troy Lee watched their friend trying not to drown.

  “He’s doing really well for a non-swimmer,” Drew said calmly.

  “Doesn’t want to get his hair wet,” said Troy with Taoist simplicity.

  “Yeah, can’t waste that two hours of blow-drying.”

  Tommy moved to the front of the raft and held his paddle out to Jeff. “Grab it.”

  Jeff flailed and thrashed, but didn’t grab the paddle.

  “If he stops paddling his head will go under,” Troy called. “You’ll have to grab him.”

  Tommy whacked Jeff on the head with the plastic paddle. “Grab it!” The power forward slipped under for a second and bobbed to the surface again.

  “That’s one!” Drew called.

  “Now grab it,” Tommy yelled. He raised the paddle as if to strike again. Jeff shook his head violently and reached for the paddle as he went under again.

  “That’s two!”

  Tommy pulled the paddle up with Jeff on the end while Barry and Lash wrestled the big man into the boat.

  “Well done, men,” the Emperor said.

  The yachtsmen stood at the end of the dock, watching in amazement. Drew turned to them. “We’re going to need that raft for a while, okay?”

  One of the crewmen started to protest and Drew jacked a shell into the shotgun, ripping the wrapping paper. “Big shark hunt. We need the raft.”

  The crewman nodded and backed away. “Sure, as long as you need it.”

  “Okay,” Tommy called. “Everybody in the raft.”

  Drew and Troy Lee helped the Emperor get into the raft, then handed over Bummer and Lazarus and climbed in themselves. The Emperor stood at the front of the raft as they made their way across the harbor to the Sanguine II.

  Twenty yards from the yacht Bummer began barking and bouncing around the raft. “The fiend is definitely on board,” the Emperor said. He picked up Bummer and shoved him into his pocket. “Well done, little one.”

  It took five minutes to get everyone on board and the liferaft secured to the stern. “How we doing on time, Lash?” Tommy asked.

  “We’re looking at four, maybe four and a half hours of daylight. Will he wake up at sunset or dark?”

  “Jody usually wakes up right at sunset. So let’s say four.”

  “Okay, everybody,” Tommy said, “let’s spread out and find the vampire.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” said Jeff. He was dripping and his lips had gone blue with the cold. The Animals looked at him. He was embarrassed by the attention. “Well, in all of the horror movies, the people split up and the monster picks them off one by one.”

  “Good point,” Tommy said. “Everybody stay together; find this fucker and get it over with.” He raised a gift-wrapped spear gun in salute. “For Simon!”

  “For Simon!” the Animals shouted as they followed Tommy below.

  CHAPTER 33

  SHIP OF FOOLS

  Tommy led them down a narrow hallway and into a large room paneled in dark walnut and furnished with heavy, dark wood furniture. Paintings and bookshelves filled with leather volumes lined the walls; strands of gold wire running across the front of the shelves to hold the books in place in rough seas were the only evidence that they were on a boat. There were no windows; the only light came from small spotlights recessed into the ceiling that shone on the paintings.

  Tommy paused in the middle of the room, fighting the urge to stop and look at the books. Lash moved to his side.

  “See that?” Lash asked. He nodded toward a large painting—bright colors and bold shapes, squiggles and lines—that hung between two doors at the far end of the room.

  Tommy said, “Looks like it should be hung on a fridge with ladybug magnets.”

  “It’s a Miró,” Lash said. “It must be worth millions.”

  “How do you know it’s an original?”

  “Tommy, look at this yacht; if you can afford a boat like this, you don’t hang fakes.” Lash pointed to another, smaller painting of a woman reclining on a pile of satin cushions. “That’s a Goya. Probably priceless.”

  “So what’s your point?” Tommy asked.

  “Would you leave something like that unguarded? And I don’t think that you can run a boat this size without a crew.”

  “Swell,” Tommy said. “Jeff, let me have that shotgun.”

  Jeff, still shivering from his dunk, handed over the gun.

  “Shell in the chamber,” Jeff said.

  Tommy took the gun, checked the safety, and started forward. “Keep your eyes open, guys.”

  They went through the door to the right of the Miró into another hallway, this one paneled in teak. Paintings hung along the walls between louvered teak doors.

  Tommy paused at the first door and signaled for Barry to back him up with a speargun as he opened it. Inside, row upon row of suits and jackets hung on motorized tracks. Above the tracks, shelves were filled with hats and expensive shoes.

  Tommy pushed aside some of the suits and peered between them, looking for a set of legs and feet. “No one here,” he said. “Did anyone bring a
flashlight?”

  “Didn’t think about it,” Barry said.

  Tommy backed out of the closet and moved to the next door. “It’s a bathroom.”

  “A head,” Barry corrected, looking around Tommy’s shoulder into the room. “There’s no toilet.”

  “Vampires don’t go,” Tommy said. “I’d say this guy had this boat built for him.”

  They moved down the hall checking each room. There were rooms full of paintings and sculpture, crated, labeled, and stacked in rows; another with oriental carpets rolled and stacked; a room that looked like an office, with computers, a copy machine, fax machines and filing cabinets, and another head.

  They followed hallway around a gentle curve to the left, where it traced the line of the bow of the boat. At the apex there was a teak spiral staircase that led to a deck above and one below. Light spilled down from above. The hallway curved around the bow and back to the stern.

  “The hallway must go back to that other door in that big room.” Tommy said. “Lash, you, Clint, Troy and Jeff check the rooms on that side. Your Majesty, Barry, Drew, come with me. Meet us back here.”

  “I thought we were going to stay together,” Jeff said.

  “I don’t think you’re going to find anything down there. If you do, yell like hell.”

  The Emperor patted Lazarus’s head. “Stay here, good fellow. We shan’t be long.”

  Tommy pointed upward with the shotgun and mounted the stairs. He emerged onto the bridge and squinted against the light coming through the windows. He stepped aside and looked around the bridge while the others came up the stairs behind him.

  “It looks more like the bridge of a starship,” Tommy said to the Emperor as he came up.

  Low consoles filled with switches and screens ran along the front of the bridge under wide, streamlined windows. There were five different radar screens blipping away. At least a dozen other screens were scrolling figures and text; red, green, and amber lights glowed along the rows of toggle switches over three computer keyboards. The only thing that looked remotely nautical to Tommy was the chrome wheel at the front of the bridge.