You Suck - By Christopher Moore Page 0,73

for the wife to return and sweep her into the wastebasket with David.

Blue leaned back and closed her eyes, listened to the bubbles popping, the wires humming through the building, the traffic out on the streets, to fishing boats leaving the wharf - then a sudden intake of breath from the living room, then another, deeper gasp as the second one found life, then a long man-scream. The dead Animals she'd collected were coming back to life.

"Sit tight, boys," Blue said. "Mama's just going to get cleaned up and put on a new dress, then we'll go get you something to eat and pick up my money."

She ran a sponge over her arm and smiled. She really could be Snow White now. One dwarf at a time, she thought.

Elijah Ben Sapir had roamed the planet for eight hundred and seventeen years. In that time he had seen empires rise and fall, miracles and massacres, ages of ignorance and ages of enlightenment: the full spectrum of mankind's cruelty and kindness. He had seen all manner of freakishness, from the perversions of nature to the perversions of mind, twisted, beautiful, terrifying: he thought he had seen it all. But for all of his years, and all the acuity of perception enabled by his vampire senses, he had never seen a huge shaved cat in a red sweater, and sitting there in his newly washed yellow tracksuit, still warm from the dryer and smelling of soap and fabric softener, he smiled.

"Hey, kitty," the old vampire said.

The huge cat eyed him suspiciously from across the loft. The cat could sense that he was a predator, just as Elijah could sense that the cat had been prey to a vampire. Kitty treat.

"I'm not going to eat you, kitty. I've fed quite enough."

It was true. Elijah was feeling a little bloated from trying to keep the body count up. Perhaps he should just kill the next few, not feed. But no, the police wouldn't know it was a vampire then, and there'd be no joy in terrorizing the fledgling. He just wasn't ready to feed yet. There was someone in the stairwell right now, he could hear her breathing and smell patchouli and clove cigarette odor wafting under the door. Soon enough, he thought.

"Perhaps we'll find something for you to eat, hey, kitty?"

Elijah vaulted off the bar stool and began opening cupboards. In the third one he found pouches of Tender Vittles. He took a bowl from the cupboard that looked as if it had never been used, dumped in the meatish nuggets, and shook them around.

"Come, kitty."

Chet padded a few steps toward the kitchenette, then stopped. Elijah put the bowl down and stepped away. "I understand, kitty. I don't like to eat in front of witnesses either. But sometimes - "

The vampire heard a car pull up outside, a car that hadn't been tuned in a while. He cocked his head and listened as the doors opened and slammed. Four got out. He heard their steps on the concrete, a female voice, hissing at the other three. In an instant he was at the window looking down, and in spite of himself, he smiled again. There was no vivid life aura around the four down on the sidewalk. No healthy pink glow, no black shadow of death. The visitors below were not human.

Vampires. On one hand, an indication of an enormous problem - one that just might attract attention that he could ill afford - but on the other, exciting in a way that he hadn't felt in a hundred years.

"Four against one. Oh my, kitty, how ever will I prevail?"

The old vampire ran his tongue over his fangs. For all the rage, frustration, and discomfort he'd endured since choosing the redhead as his fledgling, he was, for the first time in decades, not bored. He was having the time of his very long life.

"Killing time, kitty," he said, slipping into a pair of Tommy's Nikes.

Jody awoke to the smell of clove cigarettes and the crunching of Cheese Newts. There was music screeching, too - a whiny guy singing about some girl named Ligeia, who apparently he missed a great deal because he was talking about dragging her worm-worn corpse from the earth and caressing her cheek on a cliff above the sea before throwing himself off, with her in his arms. The singer sounded a little down, and like he could have used a throat lozenge.

She opened her eyes and was initially blinded until