'Bite Me: A Love Story Chapter 18\r'

'18. Carpe Noctem\r\nMARVIN\r\nMarvin the pornographic reddened cadaver pass over had d unmatchable his job. He sit and woofed, which translated from the dog meant, â€Å"cookie.”\r\nNine vampire hunters paused and reflexi stard some. Marvin sat in trend of a sm entirely utility gag in an alley in Wine Country, underside a particularly nasty Indian restaurant.\r\nâ€Å"Biscuit,” Marvin woofed. He could smell death amid the curries. He pawed the pavement.\r\nâ€Å"Whats he doing?” state Lash Jefferson. He, Jeff, and troy weight leeward carried Super Soakers lopsided with Grandma Lees Vampire Cat Remedy, other Animals had garden sprayers slung on their tail ends, except for Gustavo, who thought that making him die hard a garden sprayer was racial stereotyping. Gustavo had a attack thrower. He wouldnt say where he got it.\r\nâ€Å" min Amendment, cabr unrivalleds.” (The guy who sold Gustavo his green card had include two amendments from the Bil l of rightfulness- happen(a)s and Gustavo had chosen Two and Four, the just to bear arms and freedom from unreasonable air for and seizure. [His sister Estrella had had seizures as a child. No bueno.] For 5 bucks extra he threw in the Third Amendment, which Gustavo bought because he was already sharing a three-bed way of life house in Richmond with nineteen cousins and they didnt sustain whatsoever room to quarter soldiers.)\r\nâ€Å"Thats his signal,” express Rivera. He was wearing his UV-LED leather jacket and matt-up bid a have it kill dork. â€Å"When he sits and does that with his paw hes engraft a body.”\r\nâ€Å"Or vampire,” added Cavuto.\r\nâ€Å"Biscuit,” woofed Marvin.\r\nâ€Å"Hes fucking with you,” express Troy Lee. â€Å"Theres nonhing here.”\r\nâ€Å" possibly in the shed,” said Lash. â€Å"Theres no lock on it.”\r\nâ€Å"Who would leave anything unlocked in this neighborhood?” asked Jeff.\r\ nâ€Å"Biscuit please,” woofed Marvin. They had an agreement: As consideration for finding baseless things, the cadaver dog, heretofore referred to as Marvin, shall receive one biscuit. There was some flexibility, however, and Marvin understood that in this case, they werent founting for dead pityings, alone dead cats, and despite their constitutive(a) tastiness, Marvin was non to eat the findees. â€Å"Biscuit,” he rewoofed. Where was the biscuit? It had been months since hed lead them to the dead things. (Well, it gather inmed wish months. Marvin wasnt very good with time.)\r\nâ€Å" spread prohibited it,” said Troy Lee. â€Å"Well cover you.”\r\nRivera and Cavuto go to the shed, which was aluminium and had a roof shaped like an ancient barns. The Animals impactd in a semicircle and adroit their weapons on the shed. (Grandma Lee had stayed home to watch battle on TV when she realized in that location werent qualifying to be any elici tcrackers.)\r\nâ€Å"On three and so,” said Rivera.\r\nâ€Å"Wait,” said Cavuto. He turned to Gustavo. â€Å"No fuego. Comprende? Do not fucking catch fire up that flamethrower.”\r\nâ€Å"S??,” said Gustavo. They had tested the flamethrower on the basketball mash in Chinatown. It had a fairly short, wide spray. In other words, if Gustavo used it in the alley he would belike fry them all.\r\nBarry turned and sprayed the flamethrowers pilot light with a stream of vampire cat remedy. The flame went out with a sizzle. â€Å" sanction, go.”\r\nâ€Å"On three, then,” said Rivera. They all raised their weapons.\r\nâ€Å"One,” Rivera nodded to Cavuto and grabbed the switch to his jacket LEDs.\r\nâ€Å"Two.” Troy Lee crouched and aimed his Super Soaker to the center of the entrys, ready to strafe in any direction. Cavuto pull his Desert Eagle, cocked the hammer, and ride away the safety device.\r\nâ€Å"Three!”\r\nThe cop s threw open the doors and lit up their jackets, the Animals leaned in.\r\nSix surprised kittens and a mother cat looked out from a stroke set on stacks of five-gallon detergent buckets.\r\nThey all looked around, not express anything. The Animals lowered their weapons. The cops turned off their jackets.\r\nâ€Å"Well, thats embarrassing,” said Troy Lee.\r\nâ€Å"Biscuit,” Marvin woofed.\r\nThey all looked at Marvin. â€Å"You suck, Marvin,” said Cavuto. â€Å"Those are formula cats.”\r\nMarvin didnt understand. He had followed the trail, he had make the signal when he came to the end of the trail. Where was his biscuit?\r\nâ€Å"Bad dog, Marvin,” said Lash.\r\nMarvin growled at him, then turned to Rivera and woofed, â€Å"Biscuit.” He was not a bad dog. It wasnt his fault that no one had taught him how to direct up. It wasnt his fault they werent looking up, past the top of the shed, up the wall, to the roof, four stories up. Couldnt th ey expose them?\r\nâ€Å"Biscuit,” he woofed.\r\nCHET Chet watched the vampire hunters locomote below. He understood what they were doing and how badly they were doing it. The other cats had moved away from the edge of the roof, the smell of flame, the sunlight jackets, and the dog had made them weary. A few of them were survivors of the encounter with the minute Japanese swords earthly concern, and Asians in general fluent freaked them out a dwarfish. Although they couldnt see the life auras that a hu hu homophile being vampire could, it was still in their instinct as predators to take the weak and the sick, and the group below appeared to be neither.\r\nChet, on the other hand, was less and less of a cat every night. He was forgedger than Marvin now, and had bemused to the highest degree of his cat instinct, and whatever he was now, it wasnt a cat. Although he was still a predator, words kept invading his mind, sounds that produced pictures in his mind. Abstract co ncepts whirled around in sound and symbols. His kitty wag had been rewired with hu gentle homosexuals gentleman DNA, and what had resulted was not exclusively an alpha predator, just now a wildcat with the capacity for revenge, mercy, and conscious cruelty.\r\nChet watched the group below move out of the alley, led by Rivera and trailed by Barry, the bald, sturdy scuba diver of the Animals. The kitty part of Chets brain see Barrys bald spot like a ball of yarn, teasing him to attack. He call for to foreshorten it. He went to mist and snaked rarify the side of the building. He liked ascensioning face- floor, especially since he had liberal thumbs, simply stealth was the only way to excerpt off the last one without facing the hale group in combat.\r\nHe re tangibleized in front of Barry, on his hind feet, and before the hapless food market clerk could call out, Chet thrust his entire paw into his mouth and unsheathed his claws. There was only a slight gurgling sound, an d Clint, the born-again, who had been walking ahead of Barry, turned to see only an empty alley behind him.\r\nChet was already three floors above him on the wall. Barry dangled from Chets claws, twitching, as the huge, shaven vampire cat drank his life away.\r\nTOMMY â€Å"Foo,” Tommy said, right in Foos ear. â€Å"I want you to imagine, before you move, at all, that I was the one who wore your sun jacket to rescue Jody from Elijah. So if I see you even look like youre divergence to touch a switch of any kind, Im going to tear that arm off, okay?”\r\nâ€Å"I didnt want to put you in the statue,” said Foo for the 3rd time.\r\nâ€Å"I hunch over,” Tommy said. â€Å"Wheres Jody?”\r\nâ€Å"She went looking for you.”\r\nJared started to back away from the door into the kitchen area.\r\nâ€Å"You too, Jared. If I dont see your hands for one second, Im pickings them off so I dont have to anguish about it.”\r\nJared waved his hands in front of him like he was drying his nails. â€Å"Whoa, badass much? Im the one that let you in. I was going to get you some line of products.”\r\nâ€Å"Sorry, stress,” Tommy said. He had Foo by the pharynx, further lightly.\r\nâ€Å"Give him the one thats already opened,” Foo said.\r\nâ€Å"The one with the drugs in it?” asked Jared.\r\nFoo flinched as if waiting for the sound of his get by snapping. â€Å"Yes, that one, you fuckwit.”\r\nâ€Å"Im good for now,” Tommy said. Then to Foo, â€Å"Jody went where to find me?”\r\nâ€Å"Just out. Right after she got you out of the shell. She took half the money and most of the rail line. Abby said that she was at the Fairmont, but Rivera and Cavuto found her. We dont know where she is now.”\r\nâ€Å"Wheres Abby?”\r\nâ€Å"Shes at her moms,” said Foo.\r\nâ€Å"No, shes not.” Tommy choked him a little. â€Å"Shes here. I can smell her.” He cocked his head . â€Å"I dont hear her heartbeat. Is she dead?”\r\nâ€Å"Kind of,” said Jared. â€Å"She is nossssss-feratu. Thats how she says it. Im so jealous.”\r\nâ€Å"Did I do that?”\r\nâ€Å"No,” said Foo. â€Å"She did it herself. You were out of your mind, and you bit her, but Jody pulled you off of her and threw you through the windows. You dont remember?”\r\n â€Å"Not much. belike a good thing for you, too.”\r\nâ€Å"Shes under the mattress,” Jared said. â€Å"Foo made me hide her at that place.”\r\nâ€Å"Im going to change her back. I told you I could do it and I can. Im already working on her batch of serum.”\r\nâ€Å"And she truism Jody last?”\r\nâ€Å"Her friend Lily cut Jody coming out of the Fairmont a few nights ago. Abby went there to find her and saw Cavuto and Rivera.”\r\nâ€Å"Then we dont know if they found Jody while she was out?”\r\nâ€Å"They didnt. They didnt say anything whe n they came to get their jackets.”\r\nâ€Å"Their jackets? solarize jackets? You gave them sun jackets?”\r\nâ€Å"I have to do what they want. They were going to take me in for statutory rape and bring to the delinquency of a minor.”\r\nâ€Å"Really? Have they met Abby?”\r\nâ€Å"Truth,” said Foo, as wistfully as you can when youre macrocosm choked.\r\nâ€Å"Tommy, let me change you back. Its what you wanted. I can do you and Abby at the same time.”\r\nâ€Å"No. And youre not ever-changing her. force out her up.”\r\nâ€Å"What? why?”\r\nâ€Å"Because Im going to go look for Jody and Im taking Abby with me. Im not leaving her here with you guys.”\r\nâ€Å"Why? Shes my girlfriend. I wouldnt hurt her.”\r\nâ€Å"Shes my BFF,” said Jared. â€Å"Hes the one who cant be trusted.”\r\nâ€Å"Im taking her with me. Im not going out there without individual watching my back. Havent you ever seen a repulsiv e force movie? When you split up and go off by yourself, thats when the monster gets you.”\r\nâ€Å"I thought in this movie you were the monster,” Foo said.\r\nâ€Å"Only if you dont do what I say,” Tommy said, a little surprised to hear himself say it. â€Å"Wake her up, Foo.”\r\nJODY The last thing she remembered before burning up were the orange socks. And here they were again, fluorescent orange, highway safety orange socks, at the base of a tiny, blood-encrusted man who was fussing about at some sort of workbench.\r\nâ€Å"Well, dont you look yummy,” she said, and she was surprised at the sound of her own percentage: dry, weak, and ancient.\r\nThe little man turned, startled at startle, but then he composed himself, bowed, and said something in Japanese. Then, â€Å"Sorry,” in English.\r\nâ€Å"Its okay,” she said. â€Å"This isnt the first time Ive woken up in a strange mans apartment where I cant remember how I got there.â₠¬Â This was, however, the first time she remembered where she had been on fire at the end of the night. Before it had gone preferably that far, the girls she worked with held a lunchtime intervention in which for each one told her, frankly and sincerely, as people who loved her, that she was a drunken slut who took all the hot guys at the TGIF bar crawl every week and she needed to knock it the fuck off. So she did.\r\nNow, as in those days, she was disoriented, but unlike those days, it didnt even occur to her to be afraid.\r\nThe little Japanese man bowed again, then took a square-pointed prod from his workbench and approached her shyly, his head down, state something that sounded very much like an apology. Jody held up her hand to wave him off, say, â€Å"Hey, back off there, cowboy,” but when she saw her hand, an ash-white desiccated claw, the words caught in her throat. The little man paused just the same.\r\nHer arms, her legs? She pulled up the kimono-her stomach, her breasts-she was shrunken, like a mummy. The apparent motion exhausted her and she fell back into the pillow.\r\nThe little man shuffled forward and held his hand up. There was a plot of ground on his thumb. She watched as he raised his hand, pulled off the bandage, and put the point of the knife to the wound that was already there. She caught his knife hand and ever so gently, pushed it down.\r\nâ€Å"No,” she said, move her head. â€Å"No.”\r\nShe couldnt imagine what her face might look like. The ends of her hair were like brittle red straw. What mustiness she have looked like before he had do this, done this too much, she could see.\r\nâ€Å"No.”\r\nWith him close, she could smell the blood on him. It wasnt human. Pig. It smelled of pig, although she didnt know how she might know that. When she had been at her best she would have smelled blood on someone just walking by on the sidewalk. It wasnt only her strength that was gone, her senses were nearl y as dull as when she had been human.\r\nThe little man waited. He had bowed, but did not rise up again. Wait, he held his head aside, his throat open. He was bending down so she could drink. intimate what she was, he was giving himself to her. She touched his cheek with the back of her hand and when he looked she shook her head. â€Å"No. give thanks you. No.”\r\nHe stood, looked at her, waited. She smelled the dried blood on the back of her hand, tasted it. She had tasted it before. She felt something tacky in the corner of her mouth-yes, it was the pig blood. The hunger wrenched through her, but she fought it down. He had fed her his own blood, obviously, but in addition pigs blood. How long? How far had he brought her?\r\nShe gesticulated for him to bring her authorship and something to write with. He brought her a sketch lozenge and a broad square carpenters pencil. She drew a map of Union Square, then drew a c barbaric figure of a woman and wrote down numbers, man y numbers, her sizes. What about money? Rivera would have her things from the room, but she had conceal most of the money in some other spot. From the brick-work in the apartment, the window frames, the angle of streetlights coming down from above, she guessed she was in a basement apartment right near where shed been running on Jackson Street. nowhere else in the City looked like this, was this old. She pointed to herself and the little man and then to the map.\r\nHe took it from her and drew an X, then quickly drew a stick version of the Transamerica Pyramid. Yes. They were on Jackson Street. She wrote a â€Å"$” where shed hidden the money, then scratched it out. It was hidden in a locked electrical junction box high on a roof, where she had been able to climb easily, two floors above the highest fire escape. This frail little guy would never get there.\r\nThe little man smiled and nodded, pointing to the dollar sign. He went to his workbench, opened a woody box, and held up a handful of bills. â€Å"Yes,” he said.\r\nâ€Å"Okay, then, I guess youre buying me an outfit.”\r\nâ€Å"Yes,” he said.\r\nShe made a drinking gesture, then nodded. He nodded and held up the knife again.\r\nâ€Å"No, you cant afford it. Animal.” She thought about making a piggy sound, but wasnt sure that might not give him the wrong idea, so she drew a stickman on the sketch pad, then Xed it out and drew a first-grade stick piggy, a stick sheep, and a Jesus fish. He nodded.\r\nâ€Å"Yes,” he said.\r\nâ€Å"If you bring me a Christian petting zoo Im going to be disappointed, Mr.-uh-” Well, this was embarrassing. â€Å"Well, youre not the first guy Ive ever woken up with whose realize I dont remember.” Then she stopped herself and patted his arm. â€Å"Im appear really slutty, I know, but the truth is I used to be afraid to sleep alone.” She looked around the little apartment, at the meticulously arranged tools on the workbench, the one pair of little shoes, and the white silk kimono he had wrapped her in.\r\nâ€Å"thank you,” she said.\r\nâ€Å"Thank you,” he said.\r\nâ€Å"My name is Jody,” she said, pointing to herself. She pointed to him, wondering if that might not be rude in his culture. But he had already seen her nude person and burned up, so perhaps they were past formality. He seemed okay with it.\r\nâ€Å"Okata,” he said.\r\nâ€Å"Okata,” she said.\r\nâ€Å"Yes,” he said, with a big smile.\r\nHis gums were receded, which made him look like he had big horse teeth, but then Jody touched her saliva to her fangs, which it seemed were not retracting in her new, dried-up state, and she realized that she should probably be less judgmental.\r\nâ€Å"Go, okay?” She pointed to the sketch pad.\r\nâ€Å"Okay,” he said. He gathered up his things, put on his stupid hat, and was ready to leave, when she called to him.\r\nâ€Å"Okata?”\ r\nâ€Å"Yes.”\r\nShe made a face-washing gesture and pointed to him. He went to the little mirror over the sink, looked at himself covered with blood, and laughed, his eyes crinkled into high smiles themselves. He looked over his shoulder at her, laughed again, then scour his face with a cloth until he was evenhandedly and went to the door.\r\nâ€Å"Jody,” he said. He pointed to the stairs outside. â€Å"No. Okay?”\r\nâ€Å"Okay,” she said.\r\nWhen he was gone, she crawled from the futon and stumbled from there to the workbench, where she rested before stressful to move farther, to look at Okatas work. Wood clam up prints, some finished, some with only two or three of the colors on them, proofs perhaps. They were a series, the approach of a black, skeletal monster against a yellowed futon, then the gradual filling in of the figure. The care, swathe her in the kimono, feeding her his blood. The last print was still in the sketch stage. He must have been working on it when she awoke. A sketch on thin rice paper had been glued to the wood block and he was carving away the material for the outline-the black ink in the other prints. They were beautiful, and precise, and simple, and sad. She felt a tear rise and turned so as not to drip blood on the print.\r\nHow would she tell him? Would she point at the first sketch, the one where the figure looked like a medieval woodcut of Death himself, and point to his frail chest?\r\nâ€Å"The first thing I noticed when I saw you was the life aura around you, and it was black. Thats why I wouldnt let you give me your blood, Okata. You are dying.”\r\nâ€Å"Okay,” he would say. â€Å"Thank you,” he would say, with his newly found grin.\r\n'