Perla locked lips with Maple. They were like Ginger and Gina, the lesbian porno queens, but older, more round, and definitely homelier. Holy cows, she had no idea. It gave her a nice, warm feeling. At least there were still lovers in the ridiculous world of vampires. Too bad for her; she was going to die a virgin. And a starving one at that.
Joseph had been ordered to stay near home base, and he was not a happy dead for it. Kaleb Sainvire was 158
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a friend, but he was foremost a master vampire who had the last say when it came to his people.
“Remember the three S’s?” Joseph reminded his friend. “Speed, stealth, and suave? My retinue of expertise will be needed tonight.” The words nearly made Poe gag. Joseph smiled facetiously. It was his last attempt to lighten the direness of the situation.
“I need you here to protect the fort in case of an attack.”
Because he couldn’t very well go against the master vampire, Joseph gave Poe a squeeze and mumbled an apology for the afternoon instead. Poe gave him a dimpled half-smile and said, “Buck up, Joe.
You’d better wish I don’t return, ’cause I’m going to kick your face in when I get back.” She punched him hard in the stomach. Joseph grimaced and pretended he was cowed.
Joseph lifted the heavy wooden beam, pushed the door open for his friends, and said, “Godspeed to you all.”
The door bolt clanged shut behind them. The three were on their own and they had to make it to the Herald Examiner Building on the south side of downtown.
(((
Unmitigated darkness blanketed downtown by the time the three had walked a block from the library.
Unrelenting rain pelted the already gurgling streets. It had been three days since the downpour began.
Rainfall had become more prevalent after the gray miasma. Poe thought a lot about the change and came up with the best educated guess a third grade dropout could concoct. Perhaps it had to do with the lack of 159
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industry and cars and the untouched natural resources.
Nature was still purging itself.
The three figures cautiously listened to any sounds out of the ordinary, trudging through the overflowing streets. Their only illumination was the occasional display of lightning. A bout of nerves attacked Poe.
“Um, Sainvire,” Poe began, clearing her throat.
“Yes, Poe?” the vampire answered in a low but alert tone. The young woman’s silky voice unsettled him.
“I’ve been thinking. Would you consider letting me go so I can skip the meeting tonight?”
“I wish I could, Poe,” he answered. “But keeping you under my protection is the only option we have.”
“’Cause you know, I’m not all white. And they do bad things to minorities.”
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder which she shrugged off.
Poe swore when she lost her footing in the dark.
Her body was too rigid from her natural fear of darkness, lightning, and vampires. Wading through sewer water was no picnic. She cursed Sainvire and Maple for not carrying her into the air and making her stagger instead in unbelievable filth and cold. She thanked Sister Ann again for giving her tetanus shots, but they weren’t going to do her any good if she contracted cholera and the plague.
“Hold on to my coat, Poe,” Sainvire said, not asking. Poe was going to tell him off but decided against it. She held on to his sleeve.
When Maple tripped a quarter-mile into their trek and had to be steadied by Sainvire, Poe finally realized that the female vampire couldn’t fly. She could only hover a few feet from the ground as she had after tumbling. At least she wasn’t the only one hampering 160
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the journey. They should have been up among skyscrapers and away from the rank water with lots of rusted metal slivers. Her Adidas swam in fetidness that marinated her pruned feet in street sauce.
She did not want to die.
I could shoot Sainvire and Maple in the head and make my escape, Poe said in the muddle of her mind.
It’d help if I could see two feet from me. Immediately the sweet scene between Maple and Perla came back to her, and she resisted her impulse.
Vampires were quickly becoming more three-dimensional, and she didn’t like it. Nosferatu was so much easier to hate. The past few days made her realize that not all vampires possessed the inherent evil of their kind. The revelation made it all the harder to lump them