You Suck - By Christopher Moore Page 0,37

liked to think of it as her professional face. So instead of snapping Abby's pale little neck, she smiled, counting to ten as she did. At ten, she said, "Go get him. Bring him back." Another smile. "Okay, sweetie?"

"But why is he orange?"

"The shedding is upon him," Jody said. "Every hundred years or so, we shed our skin, and a few weeks prior we turn orange. It's a very dangerous time for us. So please, go find him."

Abby nodded furiously and backed away toward the door. "Really?"

"Really," Jody said, nodding gravely. "Quick, away with you, the time of the shedding is upon him." She waved toward the door the way she thought a five-hundred-year-old countess might. (Where did the countess thing come from, anyway?)

"Right," Abby said, and she took off out the loft door and down the steps after Tommy.

Jody went to the bathroom and used a damp washcloth to wash the blood tears off her face. I may actually be evil, she thought. She knew it should bother her more, being evil and all, but after she put on a little mascara and some lipstick and poured herself another cup of blood-laced coffee, she found that she was okay with it.

Chapter Thirteen

Moving Day

Jody sipped her coffee and sighed, satisfied, like she'd just had a gentle coffee orgasm, the sort of pleasurable release you only see people have in commercials for froufrou coffee and hemorrhoid cream. This blood-beverage phenomenon added a whole new twist to their lives. A glass of wine? A diet cola maybe - wait, screw diet - a sugary, teeth-rotting cola. What about solid food? Sure, being a godlike creature of the night was great, but what about a jelly donut? French fries? She was Irish, she felt a deep-seated need for potatoes. She was musing on the idea of heading up to McDonald's on Market Street and spooging a syringe full of William's blood all over a supersized box of deep-fried nirvana when the phone rang. The caller ID number was blocked, it just said mobile. It might be Tommy. He'd activated the disposable mobile phones they'd bought, but he probably hadn't written down the numbers.

"Hey, pumpkin," Jody said.

She heard a clattering at the other end of the line. "Sorry, I dropped the phone."

Oops. Not Tommy. "Who is this?"

"Uh, it's, uh, it's Steve. I'm the med student who called you about your condition."

He'd found her when she'd gone to a Blood Drinkers Anonymous meeting in Japan Town, which turned out to be a bunch of nerds with problems distinguishing fantasy from reality. Had watched her from a distance and called her on a pay phone from blocks away, ready to jump in his car and bolt if she came near him. He knew what she was.

He'd said that he had examined one of the bodies left by the old vampire. Elijah had snapped their necks so the bodies would be found, instead of turning to dust.

"What do you want?"

"Well, like I said, I'm a med student at Berkeley. Actually, I'm in research. Gene therapy."

"Yeah, next lie, please." Jody's mind was going ninety miles and hour. Too many people knew about her. Maybe she and Tommy should have left town.

"What lie?" Steve asked.

"Berkeley doesn't have a med school," Jody said. "So what do you want?"

"I don't want anything. I've been trying to tell you, I've studied the blood of the victims. I think I may be able to reverse your condition. Turn you back. I just need some time in the lab with your blood."

"Bullshit, Steve. This isn't biology."

"Yes it is. I told your boyfriend the night you turned him."

"How did you know...?"

"I was on the phone with him when you told him you were going to be together for a very long time."

"Well, that was rude, just listening like that."

"Sorry. I've managed to get cloned cells from the throats of victims to revert to their natural human state."

"Which is dead," Jody said.

"No, living cells. I just need to meet with you."

He'd pressed this before, and Jody had been willing to meet with him, but unfortunately, while she was sleeping, Tommy had put her in the freezer for a few days and she'd missed the appointment. "No meeting, Steve. Forget you know anything about this. You'll have to write your dissertation on something else."

"Well, take my number if you change your mind, okay?"

He gave her the number and Jody wrote it down.

"It's a burner cell phone," Steve said, "So you can't find me through it."

"I don't want