eyes to the crying sky. His companion, a breathtaking Asian vampire with long, curly hair, appeared at his side. Her lacy bodice pushed up her ample bosom, barely covering her silver-dollar nipples. Silky lingerie from Frederick’s of Hollywood completed her look. It was no wonder they let the non-white vamp hang around instead of giving her ethnic ass latrine duty.
“What did you utter, wretched girl? I didn’t quite hear you,” she said in a very affected British accent, her fangs elongating in the half-moonlight. Poe could swear she detected a Valley accent under the facade.
“I said,” Poe answered hoarsely, attempting to unpin her injured leg, “you guys are swell. So original.”
“It’s very foolish of you to mock us,” Lestupid butted in, running his press-on nails lightly along Poe’s scar. He sounded like Keanu destroying Macbeth.
“Very foolish, indeed,” Asian Marie Antoinhack hissed, licking her luscious lips.
“When did you guys turn? In the ’80s? ’90s?
Somewhere in Encino, right?” Poe shook her head, far from being afraid. She’d cut off Goss’ head and watched helplessly as Sister twitched her last breath on the lobby floor. These ridiculous posers in silk and velvet hardly incited fear in her. She just wanted to go home or be dead already. “So stupid. Pamela Anderson and Jean-Claude Van Damme could probably do better–”
The blond vampire buried his hand in Poe’s hair and lifted her up like a rag doll. The moped made a watery thud sound as it fell to the gurgling asphalt when Poe’s leg was freed.
86
Rono/That Which Bites
“Iza, take the right. The left is mine.” He indicated the throbbing pulse on each side of Poe’s neck. He lost the shoddy English accent.
“With pleasure, lover,” the woman purred, baring her fangs.
“I wouldn’t d-do that if I were you,” Poe stammered now that she realized she didn’t want to be drained to death after all. At least not yet.
“And why not?” the gorgeous vamp asked, her rain-soaked nipple peeking.
“Because I ate stacks of garlic for lunch,” she answered lamely. If only she had followed the ruckus in her head and actually chewed some garlic before heading out to Goss’, she wouldn’t have been in this situation.
“Cream of broccoli soup,” the woman declared with a laugh. “And crackers. You ate soup and crackers.”
“You can’t fool my Iza,” Blondie said. He shook his head in admonition. “She was a chef at Ginza Sushiko and knows her food.”
“She’s got broccoli flowerettes in her teeth,” Iza stated flatly, clearly annoyed at her man. “And I told you to stop telling every jerk we encounter that I was a goddamn cook!”
While the two lovebirds bickered, Poe searched for the broccoli bit in her mouth with her tongue. I can’t believe I’m actually embarrassed by vamps that ransacked Hot Topic, the lamest commercial chain store of its kind, Poe thought. Truly unpunk!
The two turned their attention back to her – their Double-Double Burger for the evening. This time they looked with malevolence and a united front. Poe closed her eyes, waiting for the twofold bite as she felt the couple’s cold mouths descend on either side of her neck. This is it? Dinner for two?
87
Rono/That Which Bites
Once again she was wrong. Instead of getting four fang holes, Poe simply fell onto the submerged pavement. She scrambled out of the way as the left half of Iza rained down from the heavens. When Poe looked up, she witnessed Kaleb Sainvire crack Blondie’s head with a head bunt and stab the vampire in the heart with a fingernail, sharp as cut diamonds and lengthened at least twelve inches before her eyes.
Sainvire’s nail reverted back to its natural length as soon as Blondie’s twitching body splashed down on the wet ground. Like an eager mouth, the groove of his finger absorbed whatever juice kill clung on the nail.
Arm yourself, stupid, the voice in her head bullied.
His erector nails are bad enough, but he’s Kaleb Sainvire. She spotted a broken wood beam riddled with lengthy oxidized nails on the ground and picked it up.
Before Sainvire could turn her way, Poe leaped and whacked the vampire across the back, grunting, “Take this!”
The vampire cursed.
Great. He’s some sort of uber-vamp, Poe thought distractedly. Something was off about the master vampire, but she couldn’t quite place her finger as to what it was.
The man staggered, touching his left shoulder as if in pain. “You better quit that, Poe,” he said, his polite warning laced with menace.
“Go bury your face in your asshole,” Poe spat, high on the pungent combination of