Poe slid down until the end of the curve and the beginning of a new flight of stairs was distinguishable by feel. She jumped down at the landing and caught Sister Ann. Once again, they started the count.
Nothing untoward happened, only an occasional explosion above the stairs brought on by trip wires to unsuspecting vampire minions, until they hit the eighth floor. There a vampire actually flew at her, catching her by the throat, nearly dragging her to the wired eleventh step. She blasted the flying vermin in the leg, but the injury to the enemy only fueled wrath. Sister, fighting dizziness, couldn’t take a shot.
“Kid, don’t you know the golden rule?” the vampire with a unibrow asked.
“No, Frida,” Poe managed to squeak out. “I guess I don’t.”
“You can’t just go around shooting vampires.”
The vampire backhanded her with such force that she ended up flat on her butt with a resonant thud on the seventh floor landing. Unlike the moderate body temperature of halfdeads, this vampire’s hand was cold to say the least. She tasted warm metallic blood on her lips and ran an investigative tongue over her teeth.
Complete and cavity-free teeth were very important to Poe.
“Ouch, that hurt,” she said to the dog who kept silent. Only when the vampire’s dark high heel shoes floated next to her forehead did Poe realize that the 66
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Bert creature was a woman. Frida Kahlo’s eyebrows looked tame in comparison to Berta’s caterpillar brow.
Woman or not, Poe shot her private parts, heart, and head from the ground, showering herself with vampire fluids and hot shells. She knew she would be extremely bruised and sore the next day – if she survived that long. A sickening thought came to her.
Why would a full-blooded vampire come out this early in the day? Without wanting, but knowing she had no choice, Poe pressed the chrono light button on her limited edition Iron Giant watch. It was 4:49pm.
“Jesus, where did the time go? Is it Double-Daylight Savings Time?” she asked the dog while wiping gut from her person. They were moving too slow. She climbed up once more and helped Sister descend the stairs.
“Did I hear you use the Lord’s name in vain again?”
“Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. There was this hairy woman and–”
“Poe, this is your soul we’re talking about!”
complained the nun.
To keep from getting annoyed, Poe took out some holy water in a spray bottle and dangled it from her belt, making her look like a window washer. Her Rambo knife was hooked on her belt already. Poe looked down at her shoes, but couldn’t see well enough to check if her laces were still in position.
Two vampires flew down at them. Poe managed to shoot one dead, but the other was too quick. It slashed Sister Ann’s shoulder as it landed on the steps, drawing blood.
All Poe remembered was the cry from Penny as the two of them were thrown against the wall, landing with a groan on a platform. Her Uzi, cut in two by vampire nails, lay on her stomach.
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“Sorry, Penny,” Poe whispered. Her jaw hurt.
Death was so close, Poe could taste it. The movement was too quick for the human eye. The vampire’s tongue had snaked out to lick the blood on her cut lips, and he smiled at her. When the bombastic undead’s white face lowered to her neck, his reddened mouth parting for a bite, Poe was just able to grab her holy water and squirt it into his throat. The vampire’s scream sounded like a pig being butchered in the PETA video she had lifted two years ago. Faces of Death had nothing on undercover PETA exclusives.
The scream was terrible, but Poe preferred it to the sound of her blood slowly drained by fanged muthas.
Her James Bond gun ended the squeal.
Respite was not to be had by Penny, Poe, or Sister Ann. At the hand of five, all the lights in the building went dead, even the sickly one-bulb lights in the stairwells. With shaky hands, Poe fumbled for the much-maligned headlamp in her pack. Without it, Poe knew they were dead. Vampires had excellent night vision. She did not.
“Sister. Do you need me to come get you?”
“Eleven, twelve, thirteen,” the nun counted to the next landing. “No thank you.”
“Sister, you’re bleeding!”
“It’s nothing, girl. I’ve been cut worse before.
Lead the way with that light.”
“You know, doggie,” Poe said softly to dispel her fears. “I’ve been a full-fledged smuggler for years, but nothing like this has