And I’m, “I do. Can you do them again?” And I slap another hundred in her jar.
And she’s, “’Kay.”
Then she lays them all out again, and this time there’s a lot of swords, but also other cards. And I’m, “Well?”
And she’s all, “In this configuration, the swords signify north, but also, the air, a sailing ship perhaps. It doesn’t make sense.”
And we’re like, “What? What?”
And she’s like, “A sunken ship?”
And I’m like, “It makes total sense.”
And Flood is like, “It does?”
And I’m like, “Stay right there, Madame. We may be back.”
And Flood is like, “What? What?”
And I’m all, “I forgot to tell you about the little guy with the sword.”
And he’s like, “You really adjust to this magical stuff fast, Abby.”
And I’m like, “Are you trying to say I’m perky? Because I’m not. I’m complex.”
I am. Shut up, I am.
He’s looking at me right now, like we should be going. Even though I am typing at awesome speed. Okay, that’s it, dude, you’re harshing the depth out of my literature. I’m coming. What a whiner. Gotta go. We’re going to run out of dark. Byez.
THE OLD ONES
Makeda put on the glasses and watched the bricks at the corner of the building light up. They’d find the cats by behavior, because even vampire cats are cats, and they marked their territory. Elijah had told them where it had started and where it was likely to move. The special sunglasses, combined with their vampire vision, allowed them to see the phosphorus expelled in the cats’ urine as glowing. They could even see a half-life, of sorts. Something marked days ago would glow much dimmer than something marked only a few hours ago.
“That way,” said Makeda.
Rolf cocked his head toward the boarded-up loft apartment on the second floor. “That’s the loft where Elijah said he turned the first cat. There are people up there. Sounds like two.”
“That’s also where he was fried by a jacket covered with sun lights,” said Makeda. “I say we clean up the cats first, they’re less tricky.”
Rolf nodded to Makeda, who bolted down the alley without another word. They followed the trail, a mark here and there, many blocks until they reached the Mission, where the trail started to sunburst out.
“I don’t know which way to go,” said Bella. “We need to get a vantage point.”
Rolf looked around and spotted the tallest building in the area. “How about that one, the one that looks like a robot pterodactyl is perched on it? He pointed to the black glass Federal Building.
Makeda said, “It’s an abomination.”
“Said the abomination,” snarked Rolf. “I’ll go. I have to go up solid, I need the glasses.” He shrugged off his overcoat and dropped his weapons on top of it.
“Well go to mist if you lose your grip,” said Makeda. “I’ll catch your glasses. If you fall off of that thing solid we’ll have to scrape you into a bag to get you back to the ship.”
He grinned, showing his fangs, then started a steady climb up the sheer corner of the building.
Bella pulled a pack of cigarettes from her jacket, shook one out, lit it, then blew a long stream of smoke up after Rolf. “What if Elijah lied about turning more humans? He’s lied before.”
When they’d retrieved the old vampire from the City initially he’d brought along a blond vampire woman, claiming she was the only one. She hadn’t survived the first month at sea. Weak vessels, they called her type.
“He didn’t admit turning the cat, either, until we found the news stories on the Internet.”
“We need to talk to him again when we get back to the ship, if there’s time.”
Rolf thumped to the pavement beside them. “That way. About six blocks. There’s a sunburst pattern that’s centered there and spreads out ten blocks or so in every direction. I could actually see a hundred or so cats on a roof there.”
“Let’s go, then,” said Makeda.
“That’s not all,” said Rolf. “There is a group of men hunting them. Eight of them.”
“How do you know they’re hunting the cats?”
“Because two of them lit up their coats. If I hadn’t been wearing the glasses I’d be blind. They’re wearing the sun jackets that Elijah warned us about.”
“Well, fuck,” said Makeda. “That’s eight more we have to kill.”
“At least,” said Rolf. “How much time before daylight?”
“Two and a half hours,” said Bella, checking her watch. “Don’t we have a sniper rifle on the ship?”
“Somewhere,” said Rolf.
“Well, they can’t turn on a sun jacket if they’re dead before we’re within five hundred yards.”
“Messy,” said Makeda. “Bullets leave bodies.”
“I’d rather have to dispose of a couple of bodies than get fried by a sun jacket,” said Bella, taking charge now. “Rolf, you and I will go after the cats. Take out as many as we can. Makeda, follow the hunters, keep your distance, see where they go, and meet us back at the ship. Tonight cats. Tomorrow night, humans.”
“I hate cats,” said Makeda.
“I know,” said Bella.
“There’s something else,” said Rolf. “There was something else on the roof with the cats. Something bigger.”
“What do you mean ‘something’?” asked Makeda.
“I don’t know,” said Rolf, “but it wasn’t putting out any heat, so it’s one of us.”
20. Hunters
TOMMY AND ABBY
Somehow it had seemed to make sense that he follow Abby’s interpretation of Madame Natasha’s reading, but now, standing on the dock by the black ship, with the night almost gone, he wasn’t so sure.
“You think she’s in there?”
“She could be. I saw in the City Blog that this ship arrived-there was a picture, and it looked cool, and-oh, I don’t know, I’m new at this. You can’t expect me to be good at everything. Why don’t you go all misty and sneak aboard?”
They heard bare feet on teak and suddenly a gorgon of blond dreadlocks popped up over the top of the smooth black carbon fiber of the cockpit.
“Irie bruddah. Irie sistah. Howzit?” A young man, very tan, heat coming off him, but with a thin black ring inside his life aura.
Abby elbowed Tommy and he nodded to show he’d seen it.
“What did he say?” Tommy asked.
“I don’t know,” Abby said. “It sounds Australian. If he goes off about going down under to have a go on his dirigity-doo I’m going to kick him in the kidneys with my forbidden love Chucks.”
“Okey dokey,” Tommy said.
The blond guy held up a pair of night-vision binoculars, looked quickly through them, then set them down again. “Shoots! You be deadies! Jah’s love to ya, me deadies!”
He vaulted up over the edge of the cockpit, landed on the deck eight feet below, then jumped over to the dock. He was very fit, very muscular, and smelled of fish blood and weed.
“Pelekekona called Cap’n Kona, pirate of the briny science, lion of Zion, and dreadie to deadies of the first order, don’t you know.”
He extended his hand to Tommy, who shook it, tentatively. “Tommy Flood,” Tommy said, then, because he felt as if he should have a title, added, “writer.”
Then the blond Rasta man took Abby in his arms, hugged her, and kissed her on both cheeks, then let his hands linger on her back and slide down. He let go when she bent one of his fingers back, driving him to his knees. “Back off, you fucking hemp Muppet! I am Countess Abigail Von Normal, emergency backup mistress of the Greater Bay Area darkness.”
“Countess?” Tommy said out of the corner of his mouth.
“And a slim and delicious deadie biscuit, too, as fine as a snowflake, yeah,” said Kona. “No harm, me deadies, I’n’I have grand Aloha for ya, but can’t bring ya on the ship. That Raven ship will kill ya dead fo
r good, don’t cha know. But we can chant down Babylon right here, mon.” He produced a pipe and lighter out of the pocket of his baggies. Out of the other he pulled a sterile lancet, the kind diabetics use to poke their fingers for blood tests. “If one of me new deadie dreadies would donate to a mon’s mystic. Jus’ a drop two.”
Abby looked at Tommy. “Renfield,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Tommy nodded. She was talking about Renfield, the crazed blood slave of Dracula in the original Bram Stoker novel. The original “bug eater.”
“Maybe we can help you with that,” Tommy said.
Abby said, “You’re not worthy of our aid, not worthy to be free, and we would surely both be tools, to help you, vampire fool.” She curtsied. “Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal. I’m paraphrasing, of course.”
“Nice,” Tommy said. She knew her romantic poetry, not very well, or accurately, but she knew it.
“Ah, mon, I tried dat paraphrasing in Mexico one time. The boat, she stop too quick and dis brutha drop out da sky like one rock. No mon, Kona doan like de heights.”
“Not parasailing, you imbecile, paraphrasing.”
“Oh. Dat diffren.”
“Ya think,” said Abby.
Tommy said, “Kona, I will give you a drop of blood, but first, are you saying that this ship belongs to vampires?”
“Ya mon. Me deadie masters, mon. Powerful old.”
“Are they on the ship now?”
“No, mon. They here to fix up this calamity. Vampire cats dat old one leave.”
“Just the cats?”
“No mon, dey clean it all up. All the peoples have seen them, or know about it. They cleaning house, brah.”
Abby shook her head like she had water in her ears. Tommy knew how she felt. “So, these old vampires are here to take out witnesses and whatnot, and they left you in charge of this ship? Just you?”
“Oh yeah, sistah. Kona ichiban top-rate pirate captain of briny science.”
“Why would they do that? You’re not even trying to keep a secret.”
Kona let his good-time bravado slip, his shoulders slumped, and when he answered, the breezy island bullshit accent was gone, “Why would anyone believe a word I say?”
“Good point,” Tommy said.
“And besides, you two already knew about vampires. No heat in the night-vision goggles.”
“Also a good point,” Tommy said. “So these are the vampires who came to get Elijah?” Abby had told Tommy that the Emperor had seen Elijah and the hooker, Blue, leaving with three vampires, taking a small boat out into the fog off the St. Francis Yacht Club.
“Ya, mon. Dat old bloodsucka be locked up below now, air tight. Dat buggah stone crazy, him.”
Tommy expected a chill of sorts, but instead of alarm, he felt his senses and mental acuity almost tightening down. There was no flight response, only fight. That was new.
He said, “So Elijah, the hooker, and how many others?”
“Just the three, mon. No hooker. She second gen vamp, mon. They doan make it long. Curl up and die for good, she.”
Abby stepped up and tried to grab Kona by the throat, but her hand was too small and she just ended up knocking him over on the dock. “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck are you talking about, Medusa?”
“Oh, dey doan tink Kona know, but only dem vamps Elijah make live long time. How ’bout a drop of Zion, now, brah?” Kona held the lancet out to Tommy.
Tommy was stunned. “One more thing. Why would they bring the ship back here? They had to know that we blew up Elijah’s yacht.”
“Ya mon, but the Raven, she ain’t like dat. She protect herself.” Kona held up his arm and Tommy noticed for the first time he was wearing something that looked like a dog’s shock collar on his wrist. “If I doan have dis here on, da Raven kill Kona dead dead, too. She knows. She knows them three. Anyone else, she send to Davy Jones.”
Tommy took the lancet from Kona, unwrapped it, and pricked his finger with it.
“Not going to happen,” Abby said, catching Tommy’s hand as he was holding his bleeding finger out to Kona. “You are not getting dirty hippie mouth on you. You might be dead but you can catch heinous hacky-sac rot from someone like him.”
“Gentle down, biscuit, Kona has him feelings, too.”
She reached into her messenger and came out with a retractable pen. She unscrewed it, squeezed Tommy’s blood into the cap, then handed it to Kona. “There.”
The Rasta man sucked at the pen so hard he nearly aspirated it, then sat back on the dock and dazzled a wide, white grin. “Ya mon, takin’ the ship home to Zion.”
Abby’s cell trilled. She checked the screen, said, “It’s Foo,” then answered and turned away.
Tommy could hear Foo Dog on the phone, begging Abby to come back to the loft right away. He shifted his focus to Kona. “Why?” he asked.
“Shoots, brah, a mon love his blood ganga, so jumpin’ ship be powerful hard, but when I sign on the Raven ship she have a crew of twenny. Dey say dem boys leave, but they ain’t jumpin’ ship when we out to sea five days. Dat Makeda deadie, full on African biscuit, too, she eatin’ me shipmats, Jah’s mercy. Only Kona left now.”
“You? You’re the only crew on a ship this size?”
“Ya mon. That Raven, she sail herself.”
Abby turned around. “We have to go.”
“What?” Tommy asked.
“Foo said all the rats are dead. All of them.”
Tommy didn’t understand. He looked at the sky, which was starting to lighten. “We can’t get over there now.”
Abby checked her watch. “Fucksocks! Sunup in thirty.”
RIVERA
The sky was lightening behind the Oakland hills and the pink light reflected in the glass front of the Marina Safeway made it appear to be on fire. The Animals stood around their cars, unslinging the tanks and Super Soakers of Grandma Lee’s tea. Clint had Barry’s spear gun, and was holding it as if it were a holy relic.
“We’re out,” said Lash Jefferson. “What are we going to tell Barry’s mom? We don’t even have a body.”
Rivera didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t thought of the Animals as people, really. It was wrong in so many ways he didn’t have time to count them up. Not just endangering the public, but actively drawing citizens into a secret operation that got them killed. Amid all the unreal things that had happened, having Barry plucked out of their ranks was too real. Too wrong.
“I’m sorry,” Rivera said. “I thought we were prepared for them. They’re just cats.”
“The Emperor told you that it wasn’t just a cat,” said Jeff, the big ex-power forward. He was scratching Marvin’s ears and the cadaver dog was smiling.
Rivera shook his head. It was the Emperor. He was a loon. How could you know that that part of the story was true?
“Did he have a wife, girlfriend?” asked Rivera. “We could put together some money for her.”
“No, he didn’t have a girlfriend,” said Troy Lee. “He worked graveyard shift like the rest of us. Got high in the morning, slept until time to go to work at eleven. Girls won’t put up with that shit.”
The other Animals nodded, sadly, for Barry and for themselves.
“You can’t quit now,” said Cavuto. “You don’t even know if your spray works. Don’t you want to see? Get revenge?”
“What’s the up side?” asked Lash.
“You save the City.”
Lash slammed the car door. “We have two hours to get our whole night’s work done. You guys need to roll out of here.”
Rivera said, “Can we have a couple of those sprayers, then? And you guys should keep them with you. We know that Chet retraces his territory. You might be territory now.”
Clint reached into the back of his Volkswagen, grabbed a Super Soaker, and threw it to Cavuto.
“Great,” said the big cop, “I’m going to save the friggin’ world with an orange squirt gun.”
“Okay, in the
car, Marvin,” said Rivera. He opened the rear door of the Ford and Marvin leapt in. “Call us if you need us.”
The two cops drove off. On the roof of the Safeway, the vampire Makeda checked her watch and squinted at the eastern sky, which was threatening sunrise.
OKATA
Okata had never been to the Levi’s store on Union Square, yet that’s what the burned-up girl had drawn on the map, so that is where he went. It appeared to be a good place to find blue jeans. He handed a young girl the list the burned-up girl had given him. He paid in cash and left fifteen minutes later with a pair of black jeans, a cotton chambray shirt, and black denim jacket. The next mark on his map was the Nike store, and he left there with a pair of women’s running shoes and a pair of socks. Then, about a block along the way to his next marker, he turned, went back to the Nike store, and bought a pair of running shoes for himself. They were bouncy and light and on his way to the next mark, he started skipping, but then caught himself and returned to deliberately pacing out his steps with his sheathed sword. People might ignore a tiny Japanese man in an orange porkpie hat and socks, with a sword, but if you went around expressing unrestrained joy, they would have you in a straitjacket before you could belt out a verse of “Zippity Do-Dah.”
Next Okata found himself in the very soft and satiny world of a Victoria ’s Secret boutique. It was nearly Valentine’s Day, and the entire store was festooned in pink and red, with very tall mannequins standing around in very small swaths of underwear. It smelled of gardenias. Young women moved back and forth, trailing bits of silk, not really talking, each entranced with her own decoration, in and out of fitting rooms, back to shelves, touching, feeling, stroking the lace, the satin, the combed cotton, then moving on to the next soft scene. He imagined that this must be what it was like in the control room for a vagina. He was an artist, and had never been in a control room, nor a vagina for nearly forty years, but he was sure he remembered it having a similar sensation. This was embarrassingly public, though, and he sat on a round red velvet settee to conceal the sudden memory rising in his trousers.
He was approached by a petite Asian girl with a name tag. He gave her his list and said, “Please,” and was shocked out of his fuzzy, separate world when she answered him in Japanese.
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