up his ass!” his friend exclaimed, kicking a malnourished dog that barely yelped. The shorter, rounder vampire picked up the medium-sized beagle-spaniel mix and began plucking its neck fur. Once a clearing was formed, he sank his lengthened fangs into the dog’s neck. He handed it to his disgruntled friend after a couple of sips to drain what was left of the blood.
“The hell with cold, bottled blood! I want to hunt and kill people again!”
Many wished for the good old days when vampires hunted for their supper. The vampire life had once been romantic and noble. Being on the blood dole sucked, and they were extremely bored of it.
“Too much Anne Rice would have every undead thinking leather and lace, Goth sex, and the titillations of drinking blood,” Goss had said some time ago.
“These vamps are missing out on their lusty New Orleans heritage. If they only knew that their favorite author became a born again Christian. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you.”
A nervous old dog followed by two cats and a rat slinked up to Poe’s half-buried hiding place. In normal circumstances, these beasts would’ve acted like the cartoon characters of old: Tom the cat, Jerry the mouse, and Spike the dog. Under vampire rule, however, the lesser beings bonded together in an 50
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alliance of convenience, companionship, and protection – or perish. On some nights Poe needed them as much as they needed her. Oily fur, fleas, and the bubonic plague didn’t even occur to her as she snuggled wearily against the trembling animals that were worse off. At least she was only homeless for a few weeks while street critters fended for themselves in the wilds of downtown Los Angeles all their brief, terrified lives.
When the days were up, Poe bounded back into the old three-story brick hotel in Little Tokyo surrounded by the stench of garlic bulbs planted almost in every garden, pot, and planter around the block. She thanked the Great Ali for keeping her neck fang free and her cranium intact. Poe entered the hotel with relief after careful inspection of an undisturbed single strand of her hair strategically taped on the door. The descent to the basement where the latch to the bunker was hidden was not as terror-free as she had imagined, however. Every creak and shadow from her flashlight evoked an image of old Nosferatu.
These were the times when her mantra needed to be uttered. “I am Bruce Lee’s daughter, Muhammad Ali’s niece, and Xena’s clone. I fear no one!”
Chanting, she let herself down to her cozy bunker.
Now it seemed like a prison. Her favorite films no longer held her interest. As for her jeet kune do workouts, she almost always had to force herself to strengthen the calluses on her shins and knuckles just to please Goss. The kicks and hits she bombarded the punching bag with no longer felt solid.
Thai kicks were considered the most lethal in the world. Even Bruce Lee incorporated them into his own martial arts style, jeet kune do. The video she often watched for guidance showed kickboxers hitting metal tubes and concrete posts as if they were mere foam.
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Poe could never follow through correctly because most everything she did was half-assed. It didn’t matter.
Yet deep down lingered the knowledge that JKD
mingled with Thai boxing and other fighting styles would be no match against immortal vampires that could lift her Vespa with one finger while drinking a bucket of human blood.
Six weeks after the cattle drop, she still hadn’t heard from her partners. She knew something was wrong. If they had been captured, or worse, killed, then it was up to her to either free or bury them.
“Get your butt off this futon, dummy!” Poe yelled in frustration, punching a pillow. The outburst was supposed to be an order and a challenge, not another excuse between bathroom breaks. The thought of losing her family of nearly eight years made her want to vomit.
“Let them be alive,” she prayed to no particular god as she put on her lucky Pixies t-shirt.
(((
The lukewarm feel of late-November rain against her pale, scarred face nearly drove Poe back into the sanctuary of her underground home. The last time she was above ground, everything was warm to the touch.
Now the world was saturated. Even the patented California sun was gone, leaving the city in a dampened gloom. The rats scuttling away from the overflowing sewer onto the cracked asphalt streets gave her a