Beach Blanket Bloodbath (Amanda Feral Book 4) (2 page)

"Remember that time you made me
pretend to be a hooker so you could lure those boys into a motel room and eat
them, Amanda?”

“Unfair!” I cried. “I didn’t see you going
hungry that night.”

“You made me clean up!” She shouted and slid
a mysterious package across the table, bundled in brown paper and twine as
though its contents were used primarily by embarrassed suburbanites to “bring
the spark back to the marriage”—which of course is code for any device
that vibrates and/or can be inserted in someone’s pooper.

After a struggle with the wrapping so
monumental I was certain a sadist had been employed, I opened the package to
reveal three jars, each full of a toxic white cream and meant for delivery to a
highly confidential locale—one I couldn’t possibly mention here lest I end
up with my head on a car hood—and not bent over and resting on it either
while someone pounds me, you perv. I mean separate from my body.

Chopped the fuck off.

These folks are serious about their skin
cream.

You see, occasionally, when two or more
vampires love each other very much—and by “love,” I mean “tolerate,” and
by “very much,” I mean “not as much as their drugs”—it’s customary for
them to gather in a sleazy apartment, strip naked and grind up against a human
liberally slathered in a white paste called cloud for a little while (read:
several slack-jawed hours). It’s all perfectly consensual, of
course—especially since the living crack pipe pockets a few thousand
dollars on a good night. The vamp doesn’t make out too bad either, unless you
consider being left curled on your side, sexual parts twitching, drooling in a
puddle of your own urine “bad.”

I mean, I do. It’s gross.

But to each his own. I understand you,
the reader, might be into that kind of thing, because you’re a pervert. Who am
I to judge? You go on now. You live your pervy life.

(End pep talk)

At first, I shot for a pretty outlandish
excuse not to. "You're selling out your own!" I claimed.

"If only, Amanda.” Wendy slapped her
palms together in prayer and looked skyward—that she didn’t explode into
flame was an actual miracle. “If I could
sell-out
on a regular basis, then I'd be able to afford that house in Madrona. You know
how I love a gigantic Americanized Tudor. As it is, I can barely afford the
penthouse
and
the Ferrari. I’m
practically on fucking food stamps."

It was true. There was nothing Wendy
liked more than a gutted out and modernized historical landmark. But that was
beside the point.

"That's not what I'm talking about
and you know it. Cloud is leached from us, from our kind. It's made from the breath,
regardless of how stinky it is."

Normally, our “breath” is a killer for
vamps if inhaled, but apparently when harvested from one of the few of us zombies
who can expectorate the toxin into the air, the made, rather than through bites
like the ones we call mistakes, its properties become euphoria-inducing and
highly addictive.

"Jee-zus. Don't act so high and
mighty,” she said. “It's not like you're of the highest moral fiber and
everyone knows it. Hell, they know about all of us, now!"

Wendy never missed a chance to point out the
critical reviews of my first memoir,
Happy
Hour of the Damned
,
a thinly veiled—it couldn't have been more transparent if it were made of
Saran Wrap—exposé of the seedy underbelly of supernatural Seattle. As I
knew they would, the living disregarded it as mere paranormal fiction—the
few that read it, that is—but amongst the dead, it caused quite a stir,
at least when it came to me, Wendy and Gil, our predominately gay
friend—we’d heard stories of him straying to the vadge, but passed them
off as urban legend—who we keep around to tell us how fucking amazing we
look, also because he’s hilarious and despite being a bloodsucking fiend at
least fifty percent more in touch with his humanity, which helps to ground a
couple of undead glamour killers like us.

Since the first book came out, there'd
been some retaliation from those mentioned in an unfavorable light.
Particularly those little pre-teen bitches, the reapers. What's worse? We'd
seen a major slump in red carpet event invites and virtually no drink tickets.

And for that, I was deeply sorry.

So, I agreed to peddle vamp drugs.

Now, before you go judging, understand
that all writers who don't have day jobs are forced into a life of crime. It's
a simple fact. If you've never seen your favorite author on the bestseller
lists and yet they keep magically putting out books, you can bet they're
earning some extra cash via some scheme or another. I'm not saying they're all
assassins-for-hire, but some are. So don't be surprised when they become
embroiled in a political sex-ring shakedown or some perfectly reasonable human
trafficking.

It's simply what we’ve been reduced to.

***

The
living trudged past, lagged by the heat wave. Their scent lingered on the
fevered striations of air rising from the concrete—this one: succulent,
juicy, with just a hint of sea salt; that one: meaty, organic with a faint
bouquet of garlic; the next: McGriddle, totally McGriddle.

In early August, Seattle sweats. People’s
bodies are so used to the mild climate that during the single week of summer,
they can’t acclimate…unless that includes whining incessantly.

Fucking summer.

Even my glass was sweaty. I trailed a
fingertip over its surface, dabbing the chilly water against the back of one
ear then the other, even as I glowered disgustedly across the table at my best
friend Wendy who had the nerve to appear cucumber-cool and breezy in her sundress
and Chanel sunglasses. Bitch. She could at least have the decency to fan
herself.

It’s not that heat makes zombies
sweat—we don’t do that, we can’t. It makes us stink, rot faster than we
can afford to keep up with. I simply cannot abide.

So, I combat that shit at all costs.

Inside my atomizer: rubbing alcohol spiked
with Issey Miyake eau du parfum (and not cologne because concentration of fragrance
is key). The concoction is a tad more floral and sweet than I’d normally wear,
but “graveyard fresh” is not easy to mask.

I gave myself a thorough misting and
pounced on Wendy. "We couldn't possibly meet your contact inside where
it's air conditioned?"

I glanced around the abandoned sidewalk
tables at Gloat Bar and then at the crowded human revelers inside, clinking
glasses, rubbing their arms from the artificial and life preserving chill. Some
were even putting on sweaters.

Bitches.

Wendy tossed her golden mane over her
shoulder and glared. "Listen, mule. This is my plan and we'll follow it. I
don't need your random commentary."

"Do you mean the animal? Because
being a mule is like an employee. You know that's a job, right? Mule. Not a
name. I'm still Amanda." I tried to sound as condescending as possible,
but it might have been lost in translation.

Abuelita glanced up from her piping hot
cup of coffee and sneered, a gesture made all the more frightening by the
addition of chola brows so gigantic she could have used a dinner plate as a
template. The woman had changed a lot since the day Wendy and I had walked in
on her clandestine home-brewed cloud business. She’d become obsessed with
“security” and nineties gang culture, even going so far as to wear plaid shirts
buttoned only at the neck and spread wide across a plain white tee-shirt for
easier gat access.

I thought I heard her mumble, "More
accurate to call her ass."

"What did you say?"

The woman shrugged, took another sip and cinched
up her lips cruelly, daring me to say more.

Because I’m the bigger person, by at
least a foot, I only sighed and shook my empty glass in the direction of our
completely vacant waiter, who glanced straight over my head as though he were blind
and had forgotten to hide behind sunglasses. “Hey, crazy eyes!” I shouted,
waving. “Fill ‘er up!”

He blanched and hurried off toward the
bar, weaving through a boring crop of mid-level Gen-Xers doing their best to
delineate Grey Goose from Belvedere—hint: they’re both vodka, they’re
flavorless, as far as I’m concerned.

Now whiskey, that’s another story.

After a few more spritzes from my
atomizer I was ready to settle in and put all my focus into judging Wendy and
Abuelita’s business dealings. And
dealing
was the appropriate word.

The fact that my best friend, Wendy,
along with her previously enslaved Panamanian bead-stringer, Abuelita, had
turned a cottage industry into the biggest organized Cloud Cuddle Conglomerate
(CCC) in the country, should have made me sick—as do many things: Couture
knock-offs, white limousines and people who eat too much salt, creating the
ultimate in bait and switch, a succulent looking meal that is predominantly
water-bloat—seriously, stop it with the sodium, people—but, as it
turns out, not nearly as sick as you’d think.

“We have to sit out here,” Wendy said. “My
distributor needs to stay mobile…in case he’s being followed.”

“Followed by who, Scarface? The feds? The
authorities don’t know anything about cloud. Last time I checked they don’t
track the comings and goings of drugs taken by fictional characters, who happen
to be dead.”

Wendy drew her finger around the rim of
her manhattan as she leaned across the table, suddenly sinister—like the
pasta salad, only twice as manufactured. “I’m not the only cloud dealer,
Amanda. There are others out there. Others who want my turf. Want to cut off my
supply. I can’t let that happen. Vampires need to cuddle and get high or
they’ll get testy.”

I had to concede.

Even Gil, given a few days without his
beloved Vance scruffing his neck like a momma cat, would go on a mini-rampage,
draining street kids dry and not cleaning up after himself, which made it all
the more worrisome. Back when he still had Vance, that is.

“Of course,” I said. “I’m sorry. This is
your business. I’m just along for the ride.”

“Cada vez, Missus,” Abuelita said, under
her breath. “Every time.”

In lieu of merely gawping in her
direction, I tossed my freshened drink into my throat and shook the single cube
at the waiter who should have known better than to return to roaming the
interior tables. He gave me a quick nod and disappeared. Training, it has its
benefits. Threats are good, too.

A rustling rose up in the distance, soft
at first, a rolling grumble like a crowd making for the exit of a stadium. I was
grateful for the distraction, if for no other reason than to take my mind off the
the reaper bill and my dwindling bank account, oh, and my empty cocktail glass.

“There he is.” Wendy raised her hand
toward a hipster with seventies pork chop sideburns and the tight striped pants
of an Osmond brother.

“His name is Grits.” Wendy gave me the
kind of wink that seals a secret (in a sitcom). “It’s a code name.”

“I hope so.” I said, absently watching
the creature peddling. “Code for what? Does he taste good with shrimp?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she waved off my
questions.

Grits rode a bike with a basket in the
front, a brown paper-wrapped package barely fitting inside of it. When he saw
Wendy, he lit up, waved frantically, clearly smitten—if the bell he rang
on the handlebar was some sort of extension of his interest. He kept jangling
the damn thing all the way across the road.

Despite the total shit show rolling
toward us, I couldn’t help but pay attention to the growing waller behind me.
Voices. Moaning. Not the excited murmur of chatter, but a familiar teeth
grating not often heard in human social climbers.

But when I turned around I didn’t see
anything.

Grits bucked the front tire of the bike
up onto the sidewalk and deftly weaved between pedestrians, breezing past ratty
homeless men and chatty shoppers rather than simply knocking them down, as some
of us at the table might have done.

Yeah. I’m talking about me, but I won’t
be judged. I’m just not very good at not knocking humans down, bike or no.
Though, frankly, I wouldn’t be caught dead on one of those contraptions, unless
it was a Huffy with a big banana seat—I’m fucking with you, if I see any
of you riding that retro-shit, God help you…and I hope you’re not on one of
those low-capsicum diets; I’m so tired of bland food.

So. Tired.

“Grits!” Wendy yelled.

I imagined it wasn’t the first time she’d
uttered those words with the same amount of enthusiasm, probably not with so
much exposed cleavage, but who knows? If you’re into grits, you’re into grits.
Live and let live. Hell, splash around in that shit for all I care. Cooked, of
course. The alternative is far too gritty for soft lady business.

Wendy waved him over as though it was
possible he’d miss the only dead people sitting outside, sweltering in the
August heat with empty bourbon glasses.

“Waiter!”