Tomorrow's Dead: The Julia Poe Vampire Chronicles (27 page)

“Nesbitt lost a lot of people and vehicles tracking our group two years ago.  Many
fled because they feared clashing with our forces.  Plus they didn’t like Nesbitt
all that much anyway, so they deserted with the formula for Plasmacore.”  He reached
over to touch a curl and continued.  “Nesbitt, according to Bradley, is pretending
to have more help than he’s got.  This may be true.  But in any case, we’re not going
to be tourists.  I’m not going to risk it.”

“But the bridge is so close,” Poe said, frowning.  Her naked breasts hypnotized him
as she leaned on one elbow to speak to him.  The ball kept bouncing up and down like
the vampire’s stomach was a table top.  “I think we should try to kill him.  You know
where he lives, right?”

“I’ll take you to the bridge some other time when democracy returns to this city. 
As for killing Nesbitt, I’m all for it, but I don’t want to risk our lives to do it. 
The underground needs to organize itself and devise their own plan of attack.  This
isn’t our town.  We don’t want to leave the city in shambles.”

Poe bounced the ball on Sainvire’s forehead, and he suddenly flipped her onto her
back.  “You’re too damn cerebral, Kaleb.  How am I supposed to have fun living with
you?”

He exposed her belly and lightly bit her skin as a punishment.  Then he kissed her
hairless sex.  “So you’ve decided to live with me, eh?” he said, peeking at her face.

“Only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, baldy.”

Looking glum, he turned over on his back.  “I wouldn’t mind moving in your place,
you know.  I’d love to help raise Percy.”

Poe sighed.  “I know, but our apartment is full of memories of Maclemar.  I think
it would weird me and Percy out.”

Sainvire looked downcast, his light gray eyes flashing.  “Then we can find a new place. 
There are plenty of lofts Downtown.  You know that.”

Poe pulled down on her open sleeping bag to cover her nakedness.  She tugged the sleeping
bag flap over herself and controlled her breathing.  Their accommodations had been
moved from a subversively hip hotel to a broken down motel in the Castro.  The hosts
provided two well used sleeping bags because the dusty mattress was stripped of sheets. 
Don’t you dare cry
, she told herself and burrowed deeper in the bag.

Why she was so emotional she didn’t know.  Perhaps she felt guilt about getting together
with Kaleb Sainvire so soon when James Maclemar had passed only weeks before.  Loving
Sainvire more than Maclemar tore at her.

“We’ll see, Kaleb.  We can discuss this when we get back home.”

He tried to peel off the flannel sleeping bag covering so he could see her face, but
Poe’s grip was strong.  She wouldn’t budge.

“I’m sorry, dear Poe, for pressuring you.”

“I’ve only recently discovered you again, Kaleb.  But I can never forget that you
left me alone all these years.  Maclemar was always there for me.  He came to visit
me when nobody else did.  I’ll never forget his goodness.  And I can’t gallivant around
town with you so quickly after his death.  I hear people are already calling me a
hussy.  You’re the one that ought to kiss my feet and agree to everything I want.” 
Poe paused.  “And I wouldn’t have stopped searching for you if you’d been taken by
Trench.  I would’ve looked until I found a body to confirm you were dead.”

Old hurt surfaced.  She had waited three months to be rescued while Trench tortured
her.  Granted, she thought Sainvire was dead at the time.  The pregnant pause after
her declaration heated her ears.  She had no idea why she rehashed such a dark time
in the history of their relationship.

Caught off guard by Poe’s angry accusations about his past choices, Sainvire stared
at the cottage cheese ceiling.  “I should’ve searched for you, I agree.  I’ll never
forgive myself for that.  I’ll never forget the sight of you tied to a bed, whipped
and bleeding.”  He turned his back to face the window.  He could almost see a sliver
of the moon but for the blinds.  “I hope you’ll forgive me someday.”

Poe remained silent.  She spent the first 20 minutes fighting tears, and then thankfully
she fell asleep.

***

She woke up alone.  Kaleb was gone along with his gear bag of explosives.  The only
remnant left of her lover was his shirt that Poe was wearing.  With a leaden heart,
she washed herself with cold water and flossed her teeth.  She brushed slowly so she
wouldn’t ruin her gums like her dentist Dr. Theodore had advised. 
No cavity or rotten tooth yet.  And my teeth will stay that way until I die
, she thought.

She put on another ’70s-type shirt, this time in purple and orange, and dressed in
her Superfly outfit.  Her incomplete getup filled her with shame.  The wig she’d forgotten
at the bookstore, and she was left with the funny-looking mustache.  She looked at
herself in the mirror and saw George Harrison with a quickly fading tan during the
Abbey Road
period.  Her hair could have been androgynous, but as she’d since shed her breast
flattener a couple of days before she couldn’t quite pass for a man.  She tore the
mustache off her face and threw it on the ground.

They’d holed up in the Castro because it was close to the Mission.  Rufus was supposed
to pick them up at dawn the following day.  She left the motel wearing her pack full
of unused incendiaries and walked the empty streets.  Her words to Sainvire haunted
her and wrung her accusing heart devastatingly.  Trench was the one to blame, not
the vampire she loved.

Occasional dogs trying to figure out what type of creature she was would pass her
by.  She didn’t know herself since her mind was imagining all sorts of breakup scenarios
with the man she’d basically blamed for her incarceration and torture at Trench’s
headquarters.  Thinking back now, she’d been unfair to Sainvire.  Knowing his resources
were spread thin, she wanted too much from him.   He had no time between saving humans
and fighting corrupt vampires and ridiculous politics besides.  All she ever wanted
was to run away, ignore the problem, and live a fulfilling, selfish life with her
lovers.  And Maclemar had paid the ultimate price.  He was knifed in an island far
away from the city because of Poe’s selfishness.

The sound of a kitten mewling or a baby crying interrupted her train of thoughts. 
Poe followed the sound that piqued her ears.  Something was off about the noise, and
it burgeoned curiosity.  She stopped in front of a well preserved Queen Ann-style
Victorian mansion and listened intently for the mewling that seemed to be coming from
the house itself.

Poe climbed the steps two at a time to the porch.  She tried the knob, and the door
was unlocked.  As was her habit, Poe let herself in.  On the first floor, four cots
bearing human slaves made the girl wince, but the banging on the floor from above
distracted her.  She scaled the stairs as stealthily as she could with all the creaks
and peeked at the row of cots of drugged cattle.  She vigorously bit her lower lip
when she noticed someone’s ass bobbing up and down in the middle cot. 

Too busy to notice Poe, the man rutting on a whimpering woman grunted his pleasure. 
Poe’s eyes narrowed as she met the woman’s terrified eyes.  She was awake from the
vampire stupor, and she was at least seven months pregnant. 

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” cried Poe.  She unsheathed her knife, walked behind the
man with a hairy ass and grabbed him by his unwashed hair.  “Leech, I’m here to slice
your throat.”  Before she finished her statement, blood coursed out from the man’s
deep wound, spraying the pregnant woman.  Poe pulled him from the terrified woman
of about 30 years of age whose head of hair had turned white from her degrading ordeal
as a blood slave.

“Don’t be afraid, miss.  I’m on your side,” said Poe.  She yanked the leech off the
bed and hurled him to the floor.  “Are you alright?”  The woman must have been turned
as a slave at a very young age.

The victim nodded and pointed upstairs.  “I’ll get them, too.  Don’t worry.”

“Come back,” said the woman weakly, hiding her undressed state with a stained hospital
gown.

“I will.  I promise,” said Poe.  She felt a lump in her throat but decided to ignore
it.  She had more filthy fiends to kill. 
No wonder Michelle and the Tunics wanted to murder turncoats who worked for vampires
while they slumbered.  They raped Michelle.  They plundered the helpless.  I don’t
need a gun for this
, she said to herself as she wiped the bloody blade on the lacy curtains.

Three of them reposed on red, white, and blue bean bags and passed around bambalacha. 
Their eyes were halfway closed as they savored the high.  All three men looked similar
– thin, bearded, long oily hair, scuffed clothes.  They were living the life, eating
four meals a day, smoking out, and raping when boredom set in.  Poe walked right up
to them, sat on the coffee table, and waited for one of the rats to notice her.  She
put the knife away.

Too stoned to be startled, the man of about 50 reclining on the red bean bag with
half-lidded eyes said, “Hey there, pretty girl.”

His companions opened their stoned eyes with difficulty and grinned.  “Are you a present
from Santa?” White Bean Bag asked.

“I sure am,” answered Poe sweetly.  “Since you’ve been such naughty boys, Santa has
sent Julia Poe herself to take care of you.”

Blue Bean Bag fluttered his eyes then recognized Poe’s five-inch scar.  He sat up
like he instantly developed goiter of the rear end and exclaimed, “Shit!  The scar! 
It’s her!”

Poe felt like a celebrity and smiled at the recognition.  Surprisingly the marijuana
haze didn’t seem so hunky-dory anymore.  Poe rose to her feet and clapped both hands
on Red Bean Bag’s ears to pummel his equilibrium.  Next she stuck her middle finger
in his left eye.  While he screamed, Poe worked on White Bean Bag and slapped him
five times in hard succession.  She kicked Blue Bean Bag in the nuts when he stood
and tried to capture her from behind.

White Bean Bag’s nose bled, and Poe punched him with knuckles callused from slamming
trees for practice.  The blood flowed as his eyes, nose, and mouth bled like a squished
ketchup packet.  Tired of the game, Poe grabbed his ear and yanked down savagely until
she heard a crack.  White Bean Bag was no more.

“I heard she can’t shoot straight anymore,” one of the remaining men declared.  “We
mustn’t be scared of her.” 
Even leeches know my business
, thought Poe.

“Too right, stoner man,” said Poe with a smile.  She slid a wrist knife from her arm
and flung it at the greasy-hair leech.  The knife landed in his inner thigh.

Caught by surprise the man cursed but kept to his gun as he pulled the small blade
from his leg.  “See what I mean?  The bitch can’t shoot straight.”

Poe nodded in assent.  “You’ll be dead in 30 seconds,” she said as her eyes surveyed
the man’s thigh that was oozing blood like a faucet.  “Femoral artery, my man.”  She
ignored his screams and focused on the last leech.

Poe concentrated her attention on Blue Bean Bag, who was clutching his nuts and calling
her the vilest names in leech speak.  She pushed the coffee table out of the way with
her foot to give her speed leverage.  From the opposite end of the room she sprinted,
landing her knee in the potty mouth’s chest and collapsing his lungs Muay Thai-style. 
The unstable bean bag nearly downed her but she rolled off before her head hit the
hardwood floor.

And there was Red Beard who’d just entered the scene holding a skinning knife he’d
pulled out of his tacky alligator boots with pointy toes.  “Get away from me, bitch!”
he said, nearly crying from fear.  The man’s equilibrium was off, and his left eye
was blind.  He swung the knife left to right.

“Wow.  Manly knife you have there,” Poe said with a laugh.  “If only you knew how
to use it, eh?”  With a round kick, she dislodged the knife from his hand.  It flew
in the air, and the vampire killer easily caught it by clapping her hand together
like a praying Buddhist monk.  She kicked herself mentally for the dangerous and flashy
move.  “Oops!  Looky here, I got your knife now.” 

Poe contemplated making the man take off his pants so she could cut off his ding dong,
but the thought gave her the chills.  She didn’t want to catch disease, so she generously
buried the knife in his last good eye. 

She would feel guilty later she knew, but at the moment Poe felt satisfied with her
methods.  When she made it to the second floor, the pregnant woman was sitting up
talking to a curly-hair Latina who looked like an emaciated J-Lo.  By the stairs was
a pushcart filled with blended and mashed meals that resembled vomit. 

“Hi!” said Poe stupidly.  “Problem’s been taken care of upstairs.”

The custodian’s eyes widened in fear.  “They’ll think I did it, Julia Poe.  I’ll be
killed!”  The scar gave her away.

Poe shook her head.  “Believe me, they won’t because you can’t do what I’ve done to
those men upstairs.  They’ll come after me.”

“Take me with you, please!” she said.  The custodian was in her early 30s, meaning
she’d been a slave since she was a little over 10 years old.  And the pregnant woman
must’ve been allowed to grow up as a child then turned into a blood cow.

“Me, too,” said the pregnant woman.  Her voice was unsteady like she’d just started
learning how to speak.  Most blood slaves unhooked from the system had the same initial
problems including learning how to walk again and chew.

“I can’t.  I’m sorry, ladies.” 

“Please.  Take us away from here,” said the Latina.  “We’ve suffered so much already.”

“Listen.  Any day now the vampire government will topple and the underground will
take over.  In the meantime you both have to look after your friends.”

“Others will come to take care of them.  Please,” begged the pregnant woman.  “Isn’t
that right, Jimena?”

“Lucy is right.  We rotate every meal time,” said Jimena.  “These people will be fed. 
Besides, Lucy’s having a bad pregnancy, possibly a breach birth, and she needs a real
doctor.  I can’t handle this myself.”