Anthology - Kick Ass

by Maggie Shayne, MaryJanice Davidson, Angela Knight, Jacey Ford

  "Thanks for saving me from the fiendish clutch of the undead," he said, dazzled.

  She grunted again, put the stake in her handbag, bent, and pulled a ring off the dead vampire's left thumb. Then she turned to leave.

  "Wait!" He grabbed her elbow without thinking, then dropped it when she turned back and gave him her full attention. Her terrifying, knee-weakening attention. Her eyes were pale, and oddly mesmerizing. He hadn't been afraid of the vampire—everything had happened so fast, and being bitten was more annoying than scary—but he was afraid of her. The vampire never heard her, never saw her, he remembered. Never knew what hit him. "Uh, you're leaving?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well…" His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat and added manfully, "I'm coming with you."

  Alarm flashed across her cold features. "No, no." She sounded… was it possible? Nervous?

  "Listen, you saved my life. You changed my life!"

  "It's only been," she said, "sixteen seconds."

  "Right, but I can't believe it's all true! Vampires and vampire slayers, and—what else? Werewolves? Fairies? Trolls? Goblins?"

  "Yes, yes, no, no, no, no. It's not that interesting," she said, which didn't convince him in the slightest. "It's just a job."

  "No," he replied, "I have just a job. You—you're living a legend. You're like Buffy! Or Faith. Maybe Faith—you're kind of terrifying. But I've got to come with you now. Besides…" He groped for something that would appeal to her warrior's honor. "You saved my life, and that's a debt I have to repay."

  "What bullshit," she said, and turned away.

  "I'll follow you!" he yelled after her. From the other side of the street, dogs started to yowl. Well, his voice did get kind of high when he was excited. "It'll be hard for you to sneak up on vampires with following your footsteps like—like a Watson to your Holmes."

  She turned back and rolled her eyes. "This isn't a TV show or a movie or even a book," she told him. "Real life is different. It's messy. It's hard to find a parking spot, and when you're on stake-but it's hard to find a place to take a shit."

  "I know real life is different," he said, stung. And, frankly, a little disillusioned. Vampire slayers needed to take shits? "You don't have to tell me that. I'm not some dorky teenager." Hell, he'd been legal drinking age for five months and sixteen days!

  "Yeah?" She was eyeing him in a way he wasn't entirely sure was complimentary. He looked down at himself, at his LUKE I AM YOUR FATHER T-shirt and the navy blue HE'S DEAD JIM computer bag, "I'm not sure you do."

  "I can help," he said. "I want to help you. You saved my life, I've got to pay you back. Come on, I'll bet you could use an assistant."

  "I don't even live around here," she said, looking more alarmed by the second.

  "Great! I'm ready for a change of scenery." He was determined to tag along with the goddess of stakehood for as long as he could. This was the way out of his mediocre life. She was right, things were different in the real world. For one thing, they were massively boring. All the things he had long suspected as a kid—vampires, slayers, the fantastic and strange and wonderful—were true! He'd been a fool to ever believe otherwise. The question was, what else was out there?

  The truth is out there, he thought, having a total Mulder moment. Oh, yeah!

  "This isn't something you can wrap up with a few pop culture references."

  "I bet you could use a guy like me," he insisted.

  "A guy like you?"

  "Yeah. I look like everybody else. Five minutes after I leave a room, nobody remembers I was there." The thing he had hated… could it be his secret power? Tonight, anything was possible. "But you… everybody remembers you, I bet."

  She actually looked like she was mulling that one over. He pressed his advantage. "I can go into places for you and—be bait! Like I was tonight."

  "You mean, be a dumbass on purpose?"

  "Whatever it takes," he said doggedly. "Make your job a lot easier."

  "Well…"

  She was weakening!

  "Great!"

  "I haven't agreed yet."

  "As good as." He had her! He had worn her down with the same über-geekiness that had scored him a date with his gaming partner for the prom. Maybe that was his power. The wear-down.

  "You help me catch this one vampire," she told him. "This one. And then you go back to your life, and I go back to mine. No following me, no bugging me, no geeking out on me, no talking to me, no looking at me, no anything, ever. Agreed?"

  "Don't worry. I'll help you catch the next one, and then you won't have to worry about trying to lose me."

  "I'm not worried about trying to lose you," she told him. "I'd rather not kill you."

  "Uh… what?"

  "I only kill the dead," she said. "Come on, Boy Blunder."

  * * *

  CH@%!*R 4

  How do I get myself into this shit? Boo asked herself as her new sidekick—sidekick!—gabbled happily beside her. Because I'm a fuckin' softie and people smell it the way a vampire smells fear. That's how.

  "So, where's this new vampire we're going to kill? Is it close by? Do we have to get on a plane? Do you have a super-secret vampire killer plane? You know, like Wonder Woman's invisible jet?"

  "Stop talking."

  "What's your power? Do you have ghost powers? Or just, you know, strength and speed and stuff?"

  "Stop talking now."

  "I bet it's ghost powers. I never even heard you come up behind us. Can you walk through walls, too?"

  She seized his shirt collar, twisted, and pulled him toward her until their faces were an inch apart. His brown eyes blinked at her from behind his wire rims. "Ghost powers? Ghost powers? What planet do you live on?"

  "Hey, if you don't want to talk about your super-secret ghost powers, I understand."

  She ground her teeth as an alternative to breaking his nose. "I don't. Have. Ghost. Powers."

  "Okay, okay. Wh-what's your name?"

  Shit. "Boo."

  "Your name is Boo?"

  "Listen carefully. I'm not telling you again. This isn't a comic book. I don't have any powers. The average person—that's you, dipshit—is so fucking unobservant, it makes it easy for me to off vampires. I look like I do because I'm a genetic freak, not because I have—Jesus!—ghost powers."

  "Are you sure you're not super strong? Because my feet are practically off the ground, here. For the second time in ten minutes, I might add."

  She let him go, disgusted with him and herself. "Come on, dickwad. Let's get this over with, so you can go back to your chat rooms."

  "Sure." He pushed his glasses up and jerked his head, tossing a lock of brown hair out of his eyes. "But if it's okay with you, I don't want my sidekick handle to be dickwad. Or dipshit."

  "Pick up the pace, fuckstick."

  "Okay, well, I don't much care for that one, either." She could hear him hurrying after her. "How about Mack? I've always liked Mack."

  "How about shut up?" Ah! Finally. She put her fingers between her teeth and whistled, a piercing note that cut through the night like a straight razor. "Taxi!"

  "Ow! Is that your power? I bet that does a number on a dog's ears."

  She sighed and jerked the door open. "Milk Street," she told the driver, then got in the front seat. Damned if she was sitting in the back with her own personal nightmare. "Get in, shitheap."

  "Bad guys, here we come!" he yelled, and she fought the urge to groan and cover her eyes.

  "By the way, my name's Eddie."

  "I don't care."

  "Eddie Batley," he continued, as if she'd said something else.

  "Shut up and drink your kiddie cocktail, Eddie."

  "It's a Shirley Temple," he snapped, and slurped it moodily. "You're the grumpiest vampire slayer I've ever met."

  "Bad news."

  "Actually, you're the only—what? Are we outnumbered by the denizens of the undead? Are their ghoulish minions cutting us off from aid?"

  I only kill
the dead. I only kill the dead. I only—"I don't see him."

  "And that's bad because… ?"

  "I have to keep sitting here with you."

  "Aw," he said, still slurping. "That just means we can get to know each other better. Which did you like best, Attack of the Clones or Phantom Menace? Have you seen Revenge of the Sith yet?"

  She motioned for the waitress to come over to their little table in the back. "Bring me three more of these."

  "You got it, hon."

  "And don't spare the booze," she muttered.

  "So, Boo. That's kind of a weird name, you've gotta admit."

  "I admit nothing."

  "Is that a nickname, or is it short for something?"

  "Shut up."

  "At least it's not Casper or Ghost Girl or something like that. Boo's kind of cute."

  "I'm going to let this vampire kill you," she informed him. "I'm not saving you this time. I'm never saving you again."

  "You would betray your oath as a slayer?"

  "What oath, nimrod? Guy asked me to take out the sucker at Doule's, same guy asked me to axe the sucker here, half in advance, the rest upon completion, thanks very much, have a nice fuckin' day."

  "So you're like—like a paid assassin of the vampire?"

  "Yeah."

  "A vampire slayer!" he finished triumphantly.

  " No. You make it sound like some romantic, amazing, incredible thing. It's just how I make a buck."

  "A lonely calling, to be sure."

  "Oh, for fuck's sake." Her Black Russians arrived and she gulped thirstily at the first one.

  "So, what's that?"

  "Shut up."

  "Beer? Is it really dark beer?"

  She groaned inwardly. "It's a Black Russian."

  "Huh. So you drink Black Russians, you're wearing black boots and jeans, and a black shirt, and your purse is black—that's the biggest purse I've ever seen, by the way—and your hair is white and—huh."

  "Yeah, it's all a bigass mystery, huh, Dorkson?"

  "It's Watson, and you don't have to be so sensitive about it. I mean, you're really beautiful. The guys in here can't take their eyes off you."

  "Super."

  "If I had something like that—"

  "Something like what, schmucko?"

  "Well, you know. You're an albino, right? It sets you apart. If I was like you, I'd be—"

  "You'd be what, Boy Blunder?"

  "Happy."

  "Eddie: Do I look happy?"

  "Well, no. Frankly, I've been meaning to talk to you about that."

  "Drink your cocktail, Babbly."

  "It's Batley," he corrected her.

  "You've heard the phrase I couldn't care less? I really, really, really couldn't."

  A blessed beat of silence, broken by his, "So, if you could be Han Solo or Luke, which would you pick?"

  "Batley, will you shut up?"

  "I knew you'd get my name right eventually," he said smugly, and slurped down his maraschino cherry.

  * * *

  CH@%!*R 5

  "This has been the greatest night of my life," her sidekick declared an hour later.

  "Really? I was just thinking about how it was never going to end." Boo said this to her arms, since she had long ago put her head down and feigned sleep in a futile attempt to get him to stop talking.

  "I can't believe they didn't even card me! I get carded for buying plant food."

  "Nuh."

  "So who is this guy? That you're going to slay? On a badass scale of one to ten, with one being my grandpa and a ten being Darth Vader—"

  "Six."

  "Huh. How about the one you already—"

  "Four."

  "He seemed pretty bad to me. Just walked up and grabbed me and chomped, without asking or even saying hi."

  "That's a garden variety vampire. They're all like that."

  "All of them? Aren't there any good ones like Angel, or season seven Spike?"

  "No, numb fuck," she said kindly. "Vampires have to drink our blood to survive, they're pissed about being dead, and they never, ever say please. The one who got you was on my list because he also liked to cut up male strippers and leave the pieces scattered around the local playground."

  "Gah!" he gahed. "That's disgusting!"

  Boo shrugged. "Well. He's dead now, B.B."

  "He was a four?"

  "Yeah."

  "Wh—what about the guy we're after now? The six?"

  "Well. Um…"

  "Oh my God! You're hesitating! You never hesitate. He's the Hitler of vampires, isn't he? He's sneaking up behind me right now, isn't he?" B.B. looked around wildly and accidentally knocked over his empty glass.

  "Calm down before you hurt yourself. The vamp I'm supposed to kill—I haven't exactly got the job yet."

  "You don't?"

  "Killing the vampire earlier was kind of like… a tryout. The guy who hired me is meeting us here tonight to get proof that I did the first job, and he'll decide whether or not to send me after the other one."

  "Huh. Cautious guy."

  Exactly. She kind of liked her faceless employer for it. She was consumed with curiosity, and couldn't wait to meet him.

  "That's why you took the ring?"

  "No, it was shiny, and I wanted it, dumbass."

  "I like B.B. better. I'm gonna pretend it stands for Brave—uh… what's another cool word that starts with B?"

  "Boring," she suggested.

  "Listen, Boo, I—"

  "No."

  "What, no?"

  "You don't get to call me by my first name."

  "What am I supposed to call you?"

  "Why don't you go away and think about it?"

  "Oh no you don't. I'm not missing all the fun."

  "Yeah, we're having tons of fun tonight." She yawned. "Maybe the vampire will liven things up. He could hardly make things worse."

  "Vampire? Where?" Another empty glass went flying. "Oh my God, is he behind me? He is, isn't he? I can feel his unholy cold breath on the back of my neck!"

  "No, dumbass," she said kindly. "The wall's behind you. The vampire's standing just to the left of the stage. Denim shirt, khakis, necktie."

  Eddie squinted. "Soulless bloodsuckers wear khakis?"

  "Sure."

  "Is it the one we're supposed to kill?"

  "No." And that was odd. She could go weeks without seeing a vampire, except through work. It was an interesting coincidence that she had killed one earlier, was setting up to kill another, and here was a third.

  Big surprise, the vampire was ferociously good-looking. Boo was used to that; in all her sixteen years of killing the dead, she had yet to stake one that was even plain. It wasn't such a mystery when you thought about it. All vampires were by definition murder victims. And everybody liked their food to be pleasantly presented. It was why they served pheasants under glass, and sushi with fake grass.

  This one was no different—tall and broad shouldered, about six foot three. Dark blond hair pulled back in a ponytail that stopped between his shoulder blades. And even across the darkened club she could see how blue his eyes were. Long, straight nose and the de rigueur full mouth, which, she had no doubt, hid a mouthful of fangs when he was hungry.

  The Boy Blunder was gripping the table while he stared. "What's he doing?"

  "Probably looking for a drink."

  "You mean a victim."

  "Sure. Most vampires have to drink every night. He's scoping for singles. Someone who looks lonely or upset—stood up, or abandoned. They're like hyenas, B.B. They don't go for groups. They cull from the herd."

  "Oh my God! He's going up on stage! He's—he's going after the stage manager!"

  "No…" She stared with dawning horror. "He's… he's…"

  B.B. glanced at the sign over the bar. "The Tickler. I thought this was some sort of weird sex bar, but it's—"

  "A comedy club," she finished, and rested her forehead on her arms again.

  "…and what's the deal
with coffins? Have you ever tried to sleep in one? They're the worst! Hard—no support for your lower back, and pointy at the end, so your feet can't even breathe. It doesn't matter how many Dr. Scholl's you put on; your feet just smother in those things.

  "I mean, it's bad enough you die and find out nobody remembered to put your funeral into their Palm, but then you've got to give up your Select Comfort Bed for this?"

  Gregory Schorr barely heard the laughter—not that he ever got the big belly roars of a Robin Williams or Jim Carrey—because he couldn't take his eyes off Ghost. Unbelievable! The most feared vampire killer of the last hundred years was sitting twenty feet away. Listening to his routine! She had a look on her perfect, white face that he couldn't read… she could have been bored or anxious.

  "And let me tell you something else about being dead," he continued, on automatic, the better to stare at the Ghost. "You still have to put quarters in the meter. Hell, for that matter you still have to find a parking place! Try finding that little detail in Anne Rice's latest." She was stunning, utterly breathtaking. Slim, with that unearthly pale skin—she was paler than he was!—and riveting light-colored eyes. Her hair looked like white silk, and he longed to touch it, to run it through his fingers, see it spread out on his pillow.

  He had been dying to meet her—almost literally—for the last decade, but the gossip and rumors simply did not do her justice. She was breathtaking. She had killed more vampires than he had ever seen but, having little love for his kind, that just made her more appealing.

  He finished his routine, accepted the modest applause—he was learning not to hypnotize the audience into laughing, and paying for it with less overt clapping—and practically ran over to her table.

  "Look out!" her companion, a dark-haired, bespectacled youngster, warned. "Here he comes!"

  "Thanks for the heads-up," she told him. To Gregory, she said, "That was—uh—well."

  "You're hired," he said.

  * * *