LITMIR.BIZ

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The curse was supposed to kick in during my twenty-first year, which it did a few weeks ago, but the hunger only hit me tonight.”

      “And you immediately wanted to tear your nearest and dearest from limb to limb?” Kathy Lehman said shrewdly. “Been there, almost did that. I fought the impulse and made do with rat blood. But since you’re not a crazy cat lady like me, you might have to go a different route.” She tipped her head to one side. “There are a few of us around, you know—vamps who’ve vowed to find any alternative to embracing the darkness. We’ve even formed our own unofficial support group that meets every Tuesday in the basement of the local union hall. Drop by if you feel the need.”

      I tried to keep my thoughts from my expression, since my thoughts were running along the lines of, sweet of you to offer, but I think I’d rather stake myself, thanks. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, trying to wipe out the image I’d just had of myself saying, “Hi, my name’s Tashya and I’m a vampire,” and having a roomful of enthusiastically cheerful strangers chorus back, “Hi, Tashya!”

      “You do that.” Again Kathy smiled, as if she could read my mind. “But right now I’m guessing you’d like some more concrete help.” Rising from the table, she turned to her refrigerator and ripped a page from a cat memo pad hanging from a cat magnet. Scribbling something on it, she handed it to me. “Go to this address. It’s a butcher shop and it’ll be closed at this time of night, naturally, but old man Schneider does a booming after-hours business in the alleyway at the back of the store. Try to get there as early as possible because he sometimes runs out.”

      I glanced at the scrap of paper in my hand. “Not that I don’t appreciate the grocery tip, but how does buying a couple of black-market T-bones help me?”

      “Old man Schneider’s after-hours business isn’t in meat, it’s in pig’s blood,” Kathy said bluntly. “He sells it in quart bags, like milk, at twenty bucks a pop.”

      This time I wasn’t able to hide my reaction. “Ewww,” I said in disgust. “Blood in a bag?”

      “Would you prefer it free-range from a human?” she asked wryly. “If you think you can handle the hunger any other way, you’re wrong. Sooner or later you’re going to kill—” She broke off abruptly as a thump, like something jumping through an open window, sounded from the adjacent room. The next moment Bojangles swaggered into the kitchen, a dead rat in his jaws. With feline pride he deposited it at his mistress’s feet.

      I realized two things simultaneously: one, I didn’t want to see what happened next; and two, the rat didn’t look as unappetizing to me as it should. I swallowed the sudden nausea that rose in me and backed toward the door. “I can see you’re about to sit down to dinner, so I’ll leave you to it,” I said quickly. “Thanks for the advice and the tea and for—”

      “Good cat.” Kathy wasn’t listening to me. She scooped the limp gray body from the floor and gave the battle-scarred tom a distracted pat. Her voice sounded thicker and deeper. “I’ll save the head for you as usual, Bo-Bo.”

      Her teeth began to lengthen past her bottom lip as she brought the dead rat to her mouth. I turned and fled, clutching the scrap of paper in my hand.

       Chapter 2

      It wasn’t the scene in WCL’s kitchen that night that made me change my mind about buying take-out blood-in-a-bag, it was the realization that if Mr. Bojangles hadn’t butted in when he had during our tussle by the Dumpster, it could have been me chowing down on a rat hors d’oeuvre. I take back what I said about standing in line in a garbage-strewn alleyway being rock bottom—the alternative would have been worse.

      Famous last words.

      “It’s okay, Joe, she didn’t mean to barge into you like that,” a girl’s voice behind me called after the old man with the shopping cart. “Hey, Mata Hari, wanna move your butt?” The owner of the voice poked me in the ribs as she asked the terse question.

      I lowered my sunglasses at her. “Do you have a problem?” I asked coolly.

      She jerked her head at the fast-retreating old man. “Besides the fact that you almost knocked down Crazy Joe? Yeah, my problem is that the line’s moving and you aren’t. I don’t particularly want to get in a rumble with a bunch of wannabes who might think it’d be a hoot to cut in ahead of us.”

      “Wannabes?” Frowning, I began to close the gap in front of me, only to realize it wasn’t there anymore. To be exact, it had been filled by four black-clad figures standing with their backs to me.

      “Great. Just fuckin’ great.” The girl behind me spoke again, her tone bitterly resigned. I turned and studied her in growing irritation. She looked about my age, but that was all we had in common. She was a few inches shorter than my five-seven, and the vintage punk-rock T-shirt and ripped khaki cargos she was wearing didn’t hide her compact toughness. Her hair was white-blond with dark roots, carelessly hacked into short spikes that stood up like two-tone chicken feathers around her head. Her eyes glared green at me.

      “You gonna tell them to get outta here or do I have to?” She didn’t bother waiting for my reply, but stepped in front of me, tapping the nearest black-clad shoulder. “Yo, buddy,” she snapped. “Haul your ass to the back of the line and take your friends with you.”

      Slowly the four figures turned to face her, moving apart so that they flanked us. Four pairs of red eyes stared menacingly out of four dead-white faces, and when the one whose shoulder had been tapped spoke, his lifted upper lip revealed razor-sharp fangs.

      “We need blood,” he said in a low, emotionless voice that seemed too deep for his Ichabod Cranelike frame. He was older than his companions and it was obvious he was their spokes-vamp. “Force us, and we’ll take it from you, human.”

      “Slice the bitch, Viktor!” The teenaged vamp beside him had skanky black hair extensions falling nearly to her waist. She carried through her dubious style sense with a black-and-red bustier that showed way too much bobbing cleavage, leather boots climbing halfway up her non-toned thighs and torn fishnet stockings. The whole ensemble was finished off with a Dead and Loving It tattoo inked on her slightly pouchy stomach. If I’d been feeling more charitable I might have taken her aside and suggested she try a few sit-ups or maybe look into Pilates, but her outburst to Viktor had kind of turned me off the feeling-charitable-toward-her thing.

      It had turned punk-girl off, too, and from her attitude so far I was guessing she hadn’t had an abundance of charitable feelings in the first place. She flicked a glance at the teen vamp’s soft midriff and shook her head. “Chickie-poo, I’d find it easier to believe you were a dedicated blood-drinker if you weren’t flaunting that burgers-and-shakes tummy at us. Dead and Loving It? I’m Lovin’ It would have been more appropriate.”

      “Hey, nobody talks to my girlfriend, Cindy, like that!” The second female vamp had Manic Panic red hair and a smear of black lipstick on one of her fangs. She was dressed like her friend and I realized that their outfits seemed somehow familiar to me, although for the moment I couldn’t think why. She turned to Viktor. “I know you said we weren’t ready to drink from a human source yet, Master, but if you want to, like, slake your thirst with these vermin, please don’t hold back on our unworthy accounts.”

      “Speak for yourself, Trudy,” the second male in the group interjected, his red gaze focusing on me. He had a face like a ferret, if ferrets wore lip studs. And tongue studs, I noted with an inner shudder as he gave Viktor a defiant shrug. “I owe you for turning me, dude, but I don’t see why I have to take orders from you forever. Screw lining up for pig’s blood—I’m ready for the real thing. I’ll drain this bitch and leave the blonde to you.” He glanced at punk-girl. “Sorry, babe, but I’m not into dykes.”

      “My name’s not babe, it’s Brooklyn,” punk-girl said with a cold smile. “And if you meant the dyke remark as a slam, it wasn’t. I’m here, I’m queer, and damn glad of it when I run into a primo specimen of the male sex like you.” She switched her attention back

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