Poe touched the key around her neck, imagining gouging the vampire’s disturbing eyes with it. They ascended each floor without speaking. Poe noticed more paintings, even in heights where no ordinary human could reach.
Poe could barely contain her foul mood, until she figured out where they were heading. The painted sun dome loomed above their heads, and the children’s literature wing was only a few steps away. Memory was bittersweet.
Then she remembered Penny. The poor dog was still in her pack probably soaked and shivering while she toured the goddamn museum with an evil and calculating dead guy.
She unslung her pack, lowered it to the floor, and found that the dog was not in her bag. Jesus, the poor dog must have fallen from the air!
“ Oh, no!” Poe cried, imagining vampires making a bony meal out of her.
“I deserve to be butchered, no doubt about it,” she said quietly. Slumped in defeat, Poe covered her clammy face with her bleeding hands. She had forgotten about Sainvire until he placed a hand on her 94
Rono/That Which Bites
shoulder and spoke. The vampire was kneeling next to her.
“Penny is being taken care of.”
At the mention of the dog, Poe stood up and looked down at the master vampire. She itched to stab his eye out with the rosary cross dangling from her neck.
“Where’s my dog?”
Sainvire rose, looking limbless in his black coat.
Wordlessly he pointed to the children’s wing. Poe forced herself not to run, motioning for him to lead the way. With her heart beating like a demolition ball descending upon a condemned building, she followed.
The last thing on her mind was to glance around the familiar place with the giant tapestries and murals of Indians and settlers on the walls. Her family had attended a lecture once where California historians tore apart the murals because the headdress depicted was a typical feathered stereotype instead of an accurate representation of west coast Native American attire.
Poe ignored the familiar carpet with happy chickens and gleeful barnyard animals.
Sainvire turned a corner, into the wing where the carved puppet theater still stood. On the stage crouched Joseph and a human. Between them lay an unconscious Penny on a bed of soft yellow comforters and pillows.
Poe noticed the tray of syringes next to the dog’s head and immediately flew into a rage.
“What the –”
With a pole vault leap, she charged at the human leech holding a hypodermic needle. The move was so unexpected and silent that both Sainvire and Joseph were genuinely taken aback by the attack. Poe launched herself at the human girl, taking her over the edge of the stage and onto the carpeted floor with a wallop.
95
Rono/That Which Bites
“You wanna bleed my dog, you gotta go through me first,” she hissed.
Like a maniac, Poe repeatedly punched the petrified taller girl in the face while screaming nasty epithets she had learned from Scarface and Clerks.
Sainvire and Joseph looked at each other, silently agreeing the spectacle was invigorating despite the violence. It wasn’t every day that two attractive women wrestled on the ground. When Poe stabbed Samantha’s thigh with the syringe, however, Sainvire had seen enough. Like a puppy getting carried by the neck, Sainvire lifted the still-kicking Poe by her t-shirt. He unceremoniously deposited her on the floor, her gutter mouth still rattling non-stop.
“You goddamn vampire. I’m going to suffocate you with your crushed nuts!”
When his order for silence fell on deaf ears, Sainvire had no choice but to clamp a hand on Poe’s mouth.
“Poe, be quiet!” he commanded. “You’re giving me an unforgivable headache, and last I heard, my kind doesn’t get headaches.” He kept his hand clamped on the smuggler’s mouth. “How’s Samantha, Joseph?”
Sainvire asked over the sound of Poe’s muffled curses as she tried, unsuccessfully, to capture his arctic fingers with her sharp teeth.
“Beaten up and sedated,” he sighed, shaking his head. “She’ll be black and blue tomorrow.” He pointedly stared at the wriggling Poe on the floor.
“And to think, she was just trying to patch up this ratty old dog.” Poe stopped her struggling, feeling guilt suddenly.
“How’s the mutt’s tongue?” Sainvire inquired, knowing full well the answer.
96
Rono/That Which Bites
“It stopped bleeding,” said Joseph, again flashing Poe a quick accusatory look. “I watched Sam here stitch the serrated wound closed.”
“Must have been quite a job.”
“Yup.” Joseph lifted the brown-haired Sam, making sure to pause in front of Sainvire and Poe for dramatic effect before walking away. “I told her to let me just do a mercy killing and break its neck,