Bite Somebody

by Sara Dobie Bauer

  “Sure.” She let go of Ian’s hand. “Could I have a moment with you alone first, Celia?”

  She nodded and followed Dr. Savage inside. She offered tea, which Celia declined. It was not a night for tea. Dr. Savage crossed her mile-long legs and put on an apparently new set of sexy specs, these in a shade of royal blue. “Ian looks tired. You haven’t been feeding on him too much, have you?”

  “No. I think I’m just a sex addict.”

  One of Dr. Savage’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh.”

  “What did you want to talk to me about alone?”

  “Has Danny left your apartment?”

  “We’re working on that,” Celia said.

  “So you have a plan?”

  Celia folded her fingers into knots. “It’s sort of Ian’s plan.”

  “Good.” She didn’t reach for her leather bound book. “Do you think it’ll work?”

  From what she understood, murder was usually pretty effective, so she said, “Yes.”

  “Good.” She nodded. “You said Danny was from New York.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How old do you think he is, Celia?”

  She shrugged. “Old? I mean, not as old as you, but, well, he’s a lot stronger than me and even Imogene, and he wears old clothes.”

  “As in holey?”

  “Like a priest?”

  “No. Like with holes in it?”

  “Oh. No. I mean his style is from a swing-dancing flick. Dapper.”

  For a second, Celia thought Dr. Savage had turned to stone. She just sat there, staring at her, head tilted slightly left. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe, and didn’t blink. The only sound was that of the doc’s fountain tinkling beneath the shuttered window that overlooked St. Arthur’s Circle. Beneath that, Celia heard a low rumbling to her right; she guessed Ian and Dean were chatting in the waiting room. She fidgeted until the couch farted, which woke Dr. Savage from her creep-tastic trance.

  “I’m sorry.” Dr. Savage cleared her throat. “I’m not feeling very well. Could we reschedule?”

  Celia left the office dejected and heard sad music in her head.

  In the waiting room, Dean had moved so he and Ian were sitting on opposite sides of the couch. They laughed about something. Celia stomped her foot to get her boyfriend’s attention. Then, she sighed. “Dr. Savage isn’t feeling well. We need to reschedule.”

  “Oh.” Ian stood up. “Okay.” He looked like he’d just won the Tour de France.

  Dean stood up, too. “Hey, man, can I get your number?”

  “Yeah, it’d be great to hang out sometime.”

  Celia gawked, but she shouldn’t have been surprised. Ian could conceivably charm the habit off a nun. Of course he would make a new best friend in three minutes flat.

  After the boys exchanged digits, Ian and Celia headed to the alley where their bikes were parked. As he unlocked his chain, he looked up at her. “Decapitation.”

  “Electric chair,” she said.

  “Hmm?”

  “I thought we were just naming forms of execution.”

  “We are. It’s how you kill a vampire. Decapitation and sunlight.” He kissed her nose.

  “How do you know?”

  He bent down to unlock her chain, too. “I asked Dean.”

  “Dean knew that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he just told you?”

  “I asked; he told.” Ian put both their chains in Celia’s bike basket.

  “Huh. And I kind of thought tonight was a complete loss.”

  “You said Dr. Savage is sick?”

  Celia shrugged. “She got all funny when I was talking about Danny. Then, she booted me.”

  He nodded. “Dean said she has a really bad temper.”

  Celia’s upper lip twitched. “He talked about her?”

  “Sure, I mean, she’s his girlfriend.”

  She didn’t climb on her powder blue bike. Instead, she said, “Want to get a drink?”

  They ended up back at the Daiquiri Deck, where Celia ordered what she considered her usual: Kryptonite. Ian ordered a Redbull and vodka, tall. They sat on the balcony overlooking the glitzy shop where Celia bought her first pair of pumps. Tourists milled about below them like hordes of clicking deathwatch beetles.

  “What else did he tell you about Dr. Savage?”

  “She likes expensive shoes and went to Cornell.” He yawned.

  “That’s all?”

  “Sweetie, you were gone for, like, five seconds.”

  “And yet you found time to learn about decapitation?”

  “It was the second thing I asked.” He slurped on his drink, and she was momentarily distracted by the pucker of his lips.

  “Uh…” She shook her head to physically dislodge a couple choice images from earlier that day. “What was the first?”

  “If there was a troupe of vampire assassins on call in Lazaret. He said he didn’t know.”

  “Does Dean think you want to kill me now?”

  “I wouldn’t think so.” He smiled sleepily.

  “How does Dean know the answer to that question anyway?”

  “Rayna probably told him.”

  “You’re calling her Rayna now?”

  He chuckled and glanced out into the street.

  Celia put her hand on his cheek. “You have a huge hickie.”

  “Thanks.” Even though he smiled, his bright eyes wandered.

  “What is it, Ian?”

  “We can’t have someone killed, Celia.”

  She took his hand. “I know.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  She chewed her bottom lip. “Have another round?”

  Two hours later, biking home was interesting. Despite years of training, Ian almost tumbled twice. Celia, on the other hand, bit it right into a hydrangea bush, which made her man laugh like a little girl.

  She wasn’t surprised to find Imogene’s convertible in the Sleeping Gull parking lot. She was surely chewing on Ian’s furniture by then, waiting for their “Kill Danny” report, which, sadly, was no longer “Kill Danny” but somewhere in the ballpark of “What the fuck are we going to do?” Celia felt like they were going in circles. Then, she realized Ian was actually circling her, showing off his speed. Was he sober already? The man’s metabolism was more miraculous than immortality.

  They locked their bikes up, and Ian lifted her, kicking and screaming, over his shoulder. He only paused and put her down when they noticed the front door to her apartment was wide open but silent inside. At least Danny and Vixen weren’t murdering each other, but the silence was perhaps more off-putting. They stuck their heads around the corner.

  Danny was on the couch, half-dressed, with a can of beer in his hand which he raised to them in salute. It was not a friendly salute. On the living room floor was Vixen. Her little pink dress rode up in the back so they could see the bottom of her ass cheeks. She straddled what appeared to be two barefoot male human legs, although Celia assumed an entire torso was also attached. A chick was on the floor, too, staring at the ceiling.

  Celia didn’t realize the girl was dead until Ian threw up over the side of the porch. Vixen’s head popped up at the sound. She looked back at Celia. Her face was covered in blood. Her eyes were blown black, and she smiled a fanged-tooth grin.

  Celia explained all this to Imogene as Ian continued to vomit in the privacy of his bathroom.

  “Do you think he’s bulimic?”

  “No,” Celia said.

  “So they are killing people. And now, they’re doing it in your house.”

  “With the door open.”

  “Right.” Imogene nodded. She had half her frizzy hair up in a painted purple clip the size of Texas. She had her red sunglasses snug on her face. Her lips were black, as were her fingernails. Celia found the sight of her friend’s familiar combat boots comforting. “Did you find out how to kill a vampire?”

  “Ian doesn’t think we should do it anymore.”

  S
he lowered her glasses to the tip of her skinny nose. “Ask him again now.”

  “He’s busy,” Celia said.

  Imogene stood up. “Ian!” She opened the bathroom door without knocking.

  Ian was on the floor with his head resting on the edge of the bathtub. His hickie-covered neck was fully exposed, and he was the color of moldy cheese.

  “Hey, dude, how you feeling?”

  “Redbull tastes worse coming back up,” he said.

  “How do you feel about Danny and Vixen?”

  He lifted his head. “What tools do you need to decapitate someone?” He belched.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Imogene drove them to a garden center in Lazaret the following night. On the drive over, Celia asked, “Why a garden center?” As she stood in aisle eleven with Ian’s hand clutched to her wrist, she didn’t wonder anymore. Axes, saws, and pitchforks surrounded them. She didn’t even look toward a row of expensive and multi-purposed chainsaws.

  What a holy mess that would be.

  Ian’s hand was literally a claw on her forearm. “I’m out of weed,” he said. She thought maybe the smell of fertilizer and mulch was like a pothead’s Post-it?

  He didn’t look like a pothead that night. He looked preppy. He was in a navy blue polo and nice, dark jeans with flip-flops. Celia was just glad he wasn’t barefoot, the way the man avoided shoes. He didn’t have on cologne, so the smell of his blood wrapped around her like a poltergeist’s hug.

  To their left, Imogene made a karate noise—Bruce Lee on helium. She had a scythe the size of Chile’s coastline in her hand, and she seemed to be doing a break dance battle with an invisible antagonist.

  “Imogene.”

  She paused. “What?”

  Ian made a sort of burp-choke noise. Celia really hoped he wasn’t going to vomit in aisle eleven. He let go of her wrist and ran both shaking hands through his hair. “I’m going to go look at…uh…” He wandered away.

  Celia crossed her arms at Imogene. “What are you, the grim reaper?”

  “I wish. Wah!” She swung the scythe around over her head.

  “You really think that’s the most practical choice?”

  “No, but it’s cool.” She did a high kick.

  Celia looked around and picked up a big, red ax. She wondered if she could really do it—really kill someone. Could she honestly swing an ax and just chop Danny’s head off? Would it feel justified or just…awful? Celia Merkin, who’d never done drugs in high school, never had sex until college, who’d really never done anything terrible in her whole life, was now considering bloody murder to save her boyfriend’s life. She closed her eyes and shook the ax toward Imogene. “What about this?”

  Imogene shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.” She put the scythe down and moved in exactly the wrong direction. “Oooo, chainsaw!”

  Celia found Ian sitting outside on the ground between two huge potted palms. He chewed his fingernails.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” He took her hand and pulled himself up. “So are we going with the scythe?”

  “I was thinking ax.”

  He nodded.

  “Ian, you’re not all right, are you?”

  He crossed his arms and touched his mouth. “I was thinking about my shark attack. Visualizing it. You know, movies try to make things look real, but…” He shook his head. “They don’t quite…I didn’t realize how much blood I had in my body until that day. This is going to be really messy.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was trying to think of a way for me to maybe wear a barf bag as a necklace?” He gestured to his throat and shoulders.

  “Ian.” Celia put her hands on his chest. “Vampires are dead, right? So maybe we don’t have that much blood.”

  “Right. Uh-huh.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “So an ax?”

  “Maybe.”

  “How about this?” Imogene shouted from down the aisle. She held a pair of garden shears that could have beheaded an elephant.

  “Oh, God.” Ian bent over and put his head between his knees.

  They drove home empty-handed with Ian’s head resting in Celia’s lap in the back seat. She ran her fingers over his clammy forehead and touched his hair. Both motions seemed to calm him, as she knew they would.

  The pads of Celia’s fingers tickled the sides of his neck. She was starving. She knew she needed to feed, but this was not a good time for Ian. She had given Dr. Savage’s blood connection a call, so they had some of what they referred to as “Shaman-Blessed Shit” because it tasted like blood mixed with sage and formaldehyde. Needless to say, Imogene threatened to go on a lot more of her “dates.”

  They pulled into the parking lot of the Sleeping Gull just as Ian’s cell phone rang. He sat up and glanced at the caller ID. “It’s my mom.”

  Celia nodded, and the three of them made their way to Ian’s place as he said, “Hey, mom. Flu bug is almost gone…”

  On the front porch, Celia watched Ian walk past them and head toward the beach. Then, she noticed that her apartment—for the first time since Danny’s arrival—was dark.

  “Huh.” Celia stopped walking.

  “What?”

  She gestured to her closed front door.

  Imogene smirked. “Do you think they left?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s see.” She reached for the doorknob, but Celia stopped her.

  “Imogene, what if there are two dead bodies on the floor?”

  “Well. Let’s see.” She pushed the door open.

  There were no dead bodies, just darkness and the smell of stale blood. Imogene wandered further inside while Celia lingered over the place where, the night before, two humans were deaded.

  She wondered what was done with the bodies.

  “The assholes aren’t here, but they’re not gone for good,” Imogene said. “Their clothes are still all over the bedroom. Along with,” she lifted her lip in disgust, “evidence of their activities. Wonder if they have any real blood in the fridge.” She clomp-clomped, and Celia followed.

  The inside of her fridge was like El Dorado, except the gold was, well, blood.

  “Holy shit.”

  “I thought Danny said they were low on cash,” Celia said. She filched a bag of A-positive and stuck it under her shirt.

  “Apparently not.” Imogene grabbed two bags of B-negative.

  Ian cleared his throat from the living room. Celia shuffled toward him, and he looked amused but in the way you’re amused when you lose your house, your dog, and your favorite underwear all in one day.

  He still held his cell phone in-hand. “There’s something you should probably see on the beach,” he said brightly. Celia felt like it had finally happened: dating a vampire had pushed his sanity off a cliff. He was sinking, like Artax in The Neverending Story.

  “Ian?”

  He just shook his head and turned toward the water.

  Imogene and Celia followed. Imogene shamelessly slurped as they went, while Celia kept her blood supply carefully hidden. Ian’s flip-flops were forgotten outside his front door. He trudged barefoot through the sand, lit gold by Heidi’s cheap walkway spotlights. Then, beyond the light, he kept walking down the beach until he took a left and stopped.

  He loudly cleared his throat.

  “Oh, shit,” Celia said.

  Sure, it was possible some kids got bored and decided to construct huge piles of sand about three feet by six. Sure, maybe they decided to stop at two piles. Maybe one of the kids even cut off a manicured finger and left it poking out.

  “I was wondering what they did with the bodies.” Imogene slurped.

  Ian fell on his ass in the sand. “We can’t just leave them like this.”

  “What do you suggest? Viking funeral?”

  He rested his head in his hands.

  Despite Imogene’s less than helpful comment, Ian was right. They couldn’t leave two dead bodies hardly buried on the beach.

  “We�
��ll put them in my closet,” Celia said.

  They looked at her like she was a total nutter.

  “What? Maybe Danny won’t notice.”

  “He’ll notice.” Imogene sighed.

  “Fine, then, we’ll put them in Ian’s closet.”

  Ian made a petite choking sound.

  “Celia!” Imogene put her hand in his hair and started brushing his curls. If there was ever a way to calm a man…

  “I’m sorry,” Celia said. “I just want all of this to go away.”

  “I’ll put them in my trunk.”

  “Really?” Celia watched Imogene continue to rake fingers through her boyfriend’s hair.

  “Just for a little while. I don’t want my trunk to smell.”

  Celia ran up and hugged her, and she flailed. She pushed at Celia’s shoulders until she realized Celia wasn’t letting go. She felt like a fragile old man in Celia’s arms, even though Celia knew better.

  “Okay, okay, gross. Enough.” She stepped back and adjusted her frizzy hair. “Ian, I need you to run interference.”

  “Okay.”

  “I need you to stand up first.”

  “Uh-huh.” He didn’t move.

  Celia knelt down next to him and ran her hand down his cheek. “Ian?”

  “She had nice fingernails,” he muttered.

  Celia glanced back at the lone fingertip that had escaped its shallow grave. “Is your brain going to explode?”

  “Something’s misfiring upstairs, yeah.”

  Celia went for the obvious move and continued Imogene’s earlier ministrations of his black hair. “Sweetie, I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “You want me to smack him?” Imogene said.

  Celia looked up at her. “What do you mean by ‘run interference’?”

  “Well, we gotta drag these people past your sonar bat-hearing, bat-shit crazy landlady. We need a diversion.” She nodded at Ian.

  “How is he a diversion?”

  Ian tilted his head into the palm of Celia’s hand like a cat.

  “Heidi thinks he’s cute. Have him go talk to her.”

  “Do you see him right now? He can’t talk to anyone.”

  “Ian.” Imogene knelt on his other side. “What’s the capital of Russia?”

  “Moscow.”

  She paused. “I have no idea if that’s right. What’s, um…” She waved a hand at Celia. “Give me a fucking Jeopardy! question.”