it’s only Poe,” Morales said with a tight smile, looking from Megan to the girl. “Kaleb said to–”
“Kaleb’s said and done many stupid things,”
Megan said harshly. “And if you think you’re going to spill it to her, the one who killed our own people, then you best tuck in your sea cucumber because I’m going to yank it out and machete it.”
Without thinking, Morales shielded his manhood and clamped his mouth shut.
“It sucks to be the rotten egg in the batch,” Poe said under her breath and took a warm tin of SpaghettiOs from the grill, daring the brooding cook to tell her off. Surprisingly the Grateful Dead handed her two plastic spoons and placed two more cans on the grill without blinking.
“The fuck do I care about their stupid plans?” she muttered as she rounded Alameda Street. “Who are they kidding? They can’t win against the Council and the master vamps. They have too many Igors and leeches eager to please.”
She hadn’t seen Sainvire since she had shot his major organs. The vampire was too busy plotting to save cattle in Los Angeles to give her the time of day.
259
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Poe shrugged, thinking about the master vampire she’d wronged. Guilt, a familiar companion by now, visited her thoughts once more. Sainvire didn’t have to do anything for blood cattle. He could just sit back and enjoy the grand lifestyle accorded to vampires of his stature. But he didn’t. Because of her, his plans may have been ruined. Sainvire should have turned me over to the Council. Or to Trench.
Poe limped to Olvera Street, the nearby historic street dating to Spanish and Mexican rule, with the hood of her sweater covering her face. Chinatown and Olvera Street had been looted so many times that it had become blasé to plunder it any further. Besides, most everything ethnic had come out of vogue. European antiques, especially Louis XIV and Rococo furniture, were all the rage.
The Mexican marketplace replete with an old Spanish church right out of a Sergio Leone film had always been one of her mother’s beloved places. Poe found her parents’ favorite shop bursting with fat candles, Dia de los Muertos papier-mâché crafts, hand tooled belts, and a variety of Frida Kahlo dolls.
Once she’d closed all the curtains and turned on her flameless lantern, Poe went in search of a belt. The pants she had been given were a tad loose about the waist. She found a simple leather belt tooled with a desert scene. The silver buckle was embossed with a large cactus wearing a sombrero. “Can’t be a vampire killer tripping over my pantalones, can I?”
The life-size papier-mâché skeleton mariachi band holding their instruments would have been creepy if her mother had not taught her to appreciate the dead collectibles as something artistic and part of her heritage. However, the saints and Jesus candles freaked her out. Melted, they were downright creepy.
260
Rono/That Which Bites
“Somebody’s using this place as a distillery,” Poe said quietly, sniffing the air. She flashed her pocket light at every nook until she located a hipbath full of fermenting garlic water behind the counter. The primordial ooze had the consistency of slime inside an aloe vera plant. The goopier the soup, the more acidic and lethal to vamp skin.
“Thank goodness for the Lost Boys.” She inspected the shelves under the counter and found a slew of empty squirt bottles and an open box of night vision goggles, mouthguards, and two squirt guns. She snapped the goggles on and saw green thermal nothingness as no one living shared the room. “I’ve always wanted one of these.”
So she wouldn’t forget, Poe tossed the goggles in her pack and dropped the bag on the floor. She grabbed an empty spray bottle and submerged it mid-forearm until the surface of the soup bubbled. She did the same with the toy squirt guns and threw them in her pack.
“This is a good sign. Could my luck be changing?” she asked without sarcasm.
As if in answer, Poe spotted a portable DVD
player next to the cash machine. This made her pause.
“Maybe my luck’s changed alright.” She wiped her sopping arm on her t-shirt. An index finger pushed the play button, and she was surprised to find the seven-inch screen cough static and blink back to life. The battery had some power left.
A familiar scene of Harold attempting to hang himself while a Cat Stevens song blared in the background wrenched Poe’s fragile constitution.