devil boy kept repeating in a cute little-boy voice. Poe not only detested the new pronunciation of her name, it made her sick. Goss said there was nothing supernatural about the undead, but Poe, face-to-face with this entity with gleaming eyes, had to disagree.
The leering cherub with a purple tongue revolted her. “Let go, you little freak!”
She tried to pry away the tiny hands curled on the bottom of her shirt, but when she touched his skin, the devil tyke hissed and screamed like a roasting banshee, nearly blowing her eardrums out of commission. The kid withdrew his hand and Poe saw what she’d done.
Smoke wafted from where Poe’s garlic-marinated skin had left a perfect imprint.
Like a giant spider, the bloodsucking imp scuttled away as fast as he could. Unfortunately for him, Poe got over her disgust and shot the baby from under the car.
“That’s just fucked up!” Poe shivered. Either the boy had been turned before he lost his baby fat or he was born dead. Either way, he unsettled the shit out of her. Vamp babies born of vamp parents were just too scary to contemplate.
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Unless other men in blue lurked, by Poe’s count only Pengle and his female bodyguard were left. The favorable count, however, did not distract from the barrage of gunfire that sliced through metal and popped already deflated tires. It was getting darker.
A growling Pengle goaded, “Not so easy when we have guns, eh, killer?”
A parked Ford Galaxy looking more like a boat than an automobile saved her hide. The thick car from the early 1970s took the assault with a yawn, shielding her nicely. Climbing over a skeleton in a faded muu muu, Poe hid inside the car. She really needed to retire from all this.
“Sorry about this, Miss,” she apologized to the corpse. “I’ll be outta your hair in a sec.”
Metal-tipped bullets merely pinged little indentations off of the car’s protected side, impressing Poe to no end.
If she could have hugged the immense vehicle, she would have. She made a mental note of the make, promising to get one for herself if she ever got out alive.
“What the–”
The Galaxy rose taller than any other car on the street. Poe snapped on the lap belt, even though she knew it would offer zero protection. The heavy car was hurled in the air, loudly crunching nose-first into a thin-veneered Japanese car that turned tortilla. The skeletal driver lost her skull. Her windshield didn’t fare any better, cracking into a spidery-veined mess. Poe’s queasy stomach continued to bob up and down long after the shocks stabilized.
“Er, Mom and Dad, looks like I’ll be needing your help again,” Poe prayed. “Sister and Goss, now’s a chance to help out ’cause I’m in the shits.”
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Not for the first time that day did Poe find herself surrounded and beaten up. And she needed to pee.
“Cinco de Mayo!” were the words that escaped her lips. A gruesome baby vamp with an unhealthy bluish tint banged on the windshield until shattered glass rained down on Poe’s lap. Two more babies who made Chucky seem cute as a button appeared, pointing their purple tongues at Poe. They were naked, cherubic, and obscene, chanting her name like a one-liner parrot.
“I guess these night galleries are real,” Poe said in panic.
Fingers trembling, Poe unlatched the troublesome seat belt. Her eyes didn’t dare leave the circle of faces.
“I need my James,” she whispered as she unsheathed her replacement Walther PPK from her side holster.
She had no idea where her Glocks fell, and there was no way in piñata hell she was going to bend down and look for them.
“Try it, girl, and you fry,” warned a one-eyed vamp wearing low rider jeans. He busted the driver side window with his elbow and wrenched her gun away.
There’s more of ’em, goddammit! Breathing hard, Poe wiped away the blood from her dripping nose and the cut near her eye. She glared at the walking facial hairs that surrounded her. Pengle brought more friends than she had thought.
“Lookit, the mighty vamp killer’s gonna cry,”
taunted a tight-lipped Pengle who adjusted his custom hook. “Kawana, would you get the door for me, pretty please?”
The group’s most petite vampire, who had tossed the elephantine car like it was pizza dough, kicked open her door. The inscrutable female cop who must have turned when she was in her early twenties tore the 250
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door from the vehicle like she was pulling a wing from a roast