II

             There were about 300 or so of us in the Los Angeles area, and we all loved it here.  There was plenty for us to do, as the nightlife around here was great, our weirdness hardly stood out at all, most of the vampires here were of quite tolerable temperament, and there were lots of health nuts running around to feed off from.  We didn’t drain that particular bunch to the point of death too often, though; the deaths of too many healthy, good-living people would arouse suspicion, so we generally just took a pint or three.  Besides, there were plenty of criminals and gangbangers running around that we could kill almost indiscriminately.  That was the nice thing about scum of the Earth: hardly anybody ever missed them when they were gone.  Stacey, Dorian, and Brandi in particular liked to play vigilante, and Stacey had even gone running around in a Batman costume a couple of times, attacking criminals who were in the act of victimizing innocent people.

            The city and surrounding areas were also large enough that there were plenty of places to hole up during the day, and we even had a network of underground tunnels and under- and aboveground gathering places that we could meet in and hang out in during the day.  In L.A., and especially Hollywood, a vampire’s day didn’t stop when the sun came up.  Most of us hardly rested at all, in fact.  That was probably at least partly due to the fact that the majority of us were close to six or seven hundred years old and didn’t require rest nearly as often as younger vampires did.  I like to think it’s also due to the fact that out here, there’s a certain . . . well, zest to the life of a vampire that one doesn’t usually find in other places of vampiric habitation.  We truly enjoyed our existences and sought to make the most out of them, and we attacked everything in our lives with a tremendous amount of fervor and energy.  I’ve spoken with vampires who have been residing here a short time after moving in from somewhere else, and they’ve all agreed that there’s a certain vitality in the area that they hadn’t seen anywhere else.

            There are communities of us in several of the major cities of the United States, but I think it’s safe to say we have the most fun.  Stacey and I have visited New York several times since first coming over to America in the 1820's, most recently in the 1970's, and the vampires and their customs are simply . . . bizarre.  It’s a strange brew of Old World vampire mentality and some of the harsher elements of the New World, and they’ve got a very warped attitude towards everything.  Not necessarily as bad as the Old World vampires in Europe and Asia, but they’ve got a certain . . . twist that sets me on edge.  I doubt if I’ll be going to New York any time in the near future; the last visit held more than enough unpleasantness.   There are vampire communities in places like New Orleans, Chicago, and Houston, but none of them are as  “modern” as we are in L.A. . . . you might say we’re a collection of vampire freaks that don’t like playing by the old rules.  In fact, he L.A. community is really the only place that most of us are comfortable at.  I’ve lived in Hollywood since the 1920's (the flap about the film industry was what first drew Stacey and myself to the area), and we’ve never been more satisfied with a place of residence.  We make the occasional one or two year-long excursion down to San Francisco and hang out with some of the artistic type vampires and mortals for a time to get a change of scenery, though.  Stacey also gets a tremendous kick out of harassing every Deadhead he sees, with both verbal shots and tomatoes.  Hell, I think we vampires have more fun here in Los Angeles than the mortals do!

            We came to a stop outside Clarisse’s modest house, which was in one of the nicer neighborhoods on the edge of the county, basically in Burbank’s backyard.  Despite the lateness of the hour, I gave the engine a final rev before I put it to rest for the time being.  The neighbors never complained to Clarisse about the visitors she got in the middle of the night, even the times Stacey, Wade, Brandi, Katheryne, and myself came roaring in on our motorcycles.  Tommy and I had the theory that most of the neighbors figured they were just better off leaving us alone, so they tolerated the noise, as opposed to arguing with a bunch of guys and women dressed in leather, boots, other various accessories, as well as being adorned with rings, chains, and earrings of all kinds of varieties.  Folks that looked like us weren’t often seen in this particular neighborhood (we teased Clarisse about this from time to time, calling her “Miss High Class Snob”), so we outsiders were left alone.

            Stacey’s theory was that the neighbors had probably seen Clarisse, Donita, and the rest of their band heading into the house after a show, and that had most likely killed any argument right there.  Clarisse, Donita, and two other women (Brandi and Katheryne) had a band called Rapture (Brandi had wanted to call it the Necrosluts, but she was outvoted) that was rapidly earning the reputation as being the heaviest and most bad-ass band in the area.  Whereas the Hollywood Vampires were quite simply out to have a good time and smash stuff up while they were doing it, Rapture made a point of looking vicious and playing music that was a monstrous cross between all of the more brutal varieties of heavy metal, along with a solid sense of melody and dynamics, and with a touch of electronically-enhanced mayhem added to the mix for good measure.  The only real drawback of the Hollywood music scene was that it was mostly male-dominated, and female bands had to really fight to get attention.  The four had decided a couple of years ago that it was time for something different, and they created a band that could not only intimidate with its appearance (lots of black eyeshadow, fake blood, leather, and metal used to good effect), but also impress with its musical proficiency, and maybe help open up things for female bands.  They had played the Roxy a couple of times, to a pretty good reaction though Geno hadn’t quite been prepared for the amount of fake blood that got thrown around, and they were regulars at the Hideout, which was a club off the Strip that attracted more metalheads than most nightclubs on the Strip did.  Sometime I shall have to introduce you to them, Michelle, as I have the feeling all of you would take quite a liking to one another.  For all I know, you’ve seen Rapture performing at one of the clubs you’ve frequented in the past, and if you have, then you have at least seen the “fearsome foursome” that I’m speaking of.

            After hopping out of (and in my case, over) my car, Tommy and I strode up the walk to Clarisse’s ranch-style house and were getting ready to knock on the door when we heard Clarisse’s voice call out, “It’s about time you guys got here!”  We, of course, took this as our invitation to go in.  Clarisse’s home was a mix of styles, all the way from 18th-century Europe to modern-day Hollywood (the Hollywood overtones dominated, though), and the walls and shelves were decorated with everything ranging from 60's smiley faces to the poster of a grinning Grim Reaper (who was also giving the viewer the finger) emblazoned with the words, “Help fight overpopulation: kill yourself!” that Dorian had given her last year.  As we stepped into the foyer (which had a suit of armor standing guard right next to the door, complete with sword), Tommy’s ankles were hit with a black cruise missile that began to meow frantically.

            “Hey sweetie,” Tommy cooed, instantly dropping to a crouch and picking up the insistent bundle of fur.  “How’s my little favorite little specimen of felis domesticus today?”  He began to stroke the cat’s ears and rub her neck, and she was immediately purring in rapture.  Tommy was by and far the most sardonic and cynical of our little group, but I’d discovered that he had a weakness where cats were concerned, and cats were equally infatuated with him, especially Clarisse’s one black cat, whose name was Death.  “Has Death been a good girl?” Tommy asked her, and Death mewed happily.

            Tommy, Death, and I headed down the hallway and out into Clarisse’s living room, where she was sprawled out on her expensive leather couch reading her seemingly ancient copy of Faust (which was in German) and listening to old Guns ‘N Roses.  Pestilence, Clarisse’s brown, white, grey, and black cat, was contentedly curled up next to her, her tail flipping around occasionally.  Clarisse looked up from her book and gazed at us with her crystal blue eyes, stretching out her lean, lithe body.  “I was beginning to wonder where you were at.  Me and the rest of the girls got done practicing hours ago, and I’ve already had a snack and everything!  Snagged a young librarian tonight . . . he got lucky that I had my heart set on gangsta tonight, otherwise I would have made a meal out of him.”  She set her book aside and stretched, adjusting the ponytail she’d tied her long, fiery red hair back in and smoothing down her Faster Pussycat T-shirt.  Pestilence gave her an irritated mew, as Clarisse’s movement disturbed her sleep.  “I’m all for the idea of wandering over to one of the less . . . shall we say, decent, areas of the city proper and scrag a gangbanger or two.  At least for some action.”  She came over and slipped her arms around my waist and looked up into my eyes.  Clarisse was the love of my life, simply put, and there were times that I felt as though I could gaze into her sapphire blue eyes for eternity, but there were times that I could let them fall out of my sight, such as when I kissed her.  The kiss, though short, was very pleasant.

            “And speaking of action . . .” Tommy said just as Famine, a lean and wiry tabby with the energy of five cats, came bolting into the room and went skidding across the hardwood floor, bouncing off of the fireplace and glass patio door.  He leaped up onto the couch and looked at us intently for a moment, sniffing the air with his nose.  The cat gave us a sour expression and meowed in a petulant tone similar to Pestilence’s a few seconds before.

            “He’s annoyed that Stacey and Dorian didn’t come with you,” Clarisse told us bemusedly, tilting her head towards the cat, as if she was listening to his thoughts.  For all we knew, she was.  She had some pretty powerful emphatic senses, at least the equal of Stacey, and she could read moods in people exceedingly well when she concentrated, so why not her cats?  Famine absolutely adored Stacey, who was just as rambunctious as the tabby and played with him every time he was over.  He also loved Dorian, who brought him some kind of treat whenever he came visiting and knew exactly the right places to scratch.

            Famine’s movement had wakened Clarisse’s fourth cat, Time, who was as white as Death was black.  The chubby cat crawled out from underneath the overstuffed easy chair and padded over to where I was leaning against the grandfather clock.  He looked up at me and yawned.  I scooped him up and itched his ears for him, and he promptly fell asleep on my shoulder.  I had to admit I was more of a dog person, having owned over a dozen dogs in my time, but Time, though he was lazy, had a certain charm to him that I found amusing.  “You slug,” I murmured to him, and the cat started purring in his sleep.

            “Where’s Donita?” Tommy asked Clarisse, absently scratching Death’s ears.  Donita and Tommy had a special attraction to one another that was more than just a little romantic in nature, and the two of them would often disappear together for days at a time.

            Just as he posed the question, a pair of hands, complete with blood-red nails and even more rings than I had on my hands, closed over Tommy’s eyes.  “Right behind you, Tommy-Cat,” Donita said, using her pet name for him, which never failed to embarrass him in front of other people, especially Stacey and Brandi.  Fortunately, since Tommy’s eyes were covered, he didn’t see Clarisse and I sticking our fingers down our throats in mock disgust at the name.  “I’ve been standing here for a minute now, and you never noticed!”  She uncovered his eyes, and he turned around with a stupid smile on his face.  Even when you’re a vampire, women can have a decidedly bewitching effect on you.

            “I would’ve noticed if someone hadn’t been using her magick to cover up her presence!” Tommy replied, playfully shoving the half-vampire, who was clad in her usual flamboyant and colorful gypsy fashion.  Donita was the result of a lonely and half-crazed vampire’s attempt to create a companion from a gypsy woman who hadn’t been entirely willing to go along with the idea.  The vampire had managed to essentially hypnotize Donita with his telepathic abilities and begin the process of transforming her into a vampire, but he hadn’t counted on the gypsy woman coming out of the trance when the process was only partially finished.  Donita had been strong in the ways of magick since she had been a child, and the infusion of vampiric blood flowing through her system had greatly strengthened her abilities (when mortal and vampiric blood were mixed almost exactly half-and-half, it held great potential for magick).  Subsequently, the vampire that had attempted to forcibly convert her to the Blood burst into flames and was seared to nothing in the space of a few seconds, such was Donita’s rage and initial shock and horror at the violation.

            Donita had some vampiric strength (though not as much as she would if she were a full vampire) and longevity, not to mention the ability to retract her fangs when she needed or wanted to, just like full vampires, though she lacked the levitation abilities most vampires had, as well as the empathy that was common to every vampire.  However, the vampire/human blood mix flowing through her veins gave her formidable magickal abilities (all half-vampires, who were more or less universally referred to as simply “vamps,” had magick proficiency of some kind, but Donita was one of the most skilled I’d ever seen, though Katheryne had her beat when it came to raw power), and being a vamp, she had an ability no full vampire could boast: she could go out into the full daylight and suffer no ill effects.  Though the mix of human and vampire blood in her denied her some of the more powerful abilities vampires had access to, it also carried a certain, undeniable strength to it.  She had been just as susceptible as a full vampire to daylight when she had first Became, but after a short space of time had passed, she had grown stronger and developed first a limited tolerance to sunlight, which eventually blossomed into total invulnerability from it.  It was an ability that all vamps had, and it was quite possibly the only thing (besides increased proficiency with magick) that enabled them to survive in the old days, when full vampires looked upon vamps as abominations and sought to wipe them out.  To this day, many vampires turned up their noses at the vamps and rejected them . . . our community was one of the few places where vamps peacefully lived side-by-side with full vampires without fear of reprisal.  There were a few assholes out there, of course, but there are always assholes around regardless of where one lives, so it really wasn’t any big deal in the great scheme of things, merely an annoyance.  By and far, our community only had problems with the ignorant and foolish, not with the amount of vampiric blood a body had flowing through it.  In fact, vamps made a good business for themselves, going out during the day and acquiring things for full vampires that couldn’t easily be obtained when the sun went down.  Donita also didn’t need to feed nearly as often as we did, and she could survive almost entirely on regular food if she so felt like it.  She purged just as a vampire did, but her mixed physiology seemed to process nutrients more efficiently than a full vampire or full human’s, and when she hacked up the contents of her stomach, there wasn’t all that much to it.

            “I gotta practice, you know,” Donita teasingly scolded him.  “I can’t just pick up a car and throw it at someone like you guys can, so I have to be sneaky.”  That was a slight exaggeration on her part, as Brandi was the only one of us that I had actually seen pick up a car over her head and toss it, but Donita made a very valid point.  Famine leaped up and snagged onto the hem of the gypsy’s denim skirt (which had all sorts of unusual, brightly-colored designs on it) with his claws and yowled for attention.  “You little brat,” Donita laughed, making her many shiny earrings jingle.  She picked him up and held him to her chest, where he started batting at her shoulder-length brunette hair, which had several deep purple streaks running through it (she was constantly using her magick to add different colors to her hair, and they changed more or less daily, though purple was the color that came up by and far the most).  “You tear my blouse, you little shit, I’ll make it so all of the squirrels and birds can smell you a mile off.  You won’t be able to go hunting again for quite a while!” she warned Famine, who continued batting, but at a less vehement pace.

            “Speaking of hunting, let’s go,” Clarisse prodded.  “Not all of us can stay out and bask in the sunlight like some people.  I’m getting hungrier by the second . . . that librarian was a good light snack, but it sure didn’t stick with me for long.”

            I had started to acquire a bit of an edge to my hunger, too, and it was getting to be about time for me to feed again, too.  “Yeah, let’s run down some pistol-toting pricks and then go for a walk around the Strip.  We’ve got about five hours to play with, which should be plenty,” I said.

            “I don’t feel the need to feed,” Donita said, “But the walk sounds like fun.  I can probably practice a few tricks while you guys are hunting, too.”  She set Famine down, who whined in protest, and adjusted her knee-high leather boots.  “Besides, I can start to get these things really broken in; that’s one thing magick can’t do for a girl, no matter how hard she tries.”

            Clarisse grabbed her black denim jacket off of the back of a chair and slid into it while Tommy and I set the cats down.  Pestilence sat on the couch and eyed us with a vaguely annoyed air; she was pretty damned snooty for someone whom I’d seen eating bugs on numerous occasions in the past.

            We left Clarisse’s house to the capable care of the cats and piled into my car.  Contrary to what Tommy had said earlier, he opted to sit in back, next to Donita.  Actually, he was informed by Clarisse on no uncertain terms that she had shotgun tonight, and Tommy offered absolutely no argument.  We headed back through Hollywood, moving in the general direction of one of the crappier areas of the city of Los Angeles, where we knew it was common for gangs to run.  It was pretty quiet this time of night, and there were few people for us to yell at as we passed through.

            While waiting at a stoplight at an intersection, a Camaro pulled up next to us on the passenger side, and the big, beefy punk behind the wheel looked over at Clarisse with a grin on his greasy, stubbled face.  Just glancing at him, I could tell that he was simply a marvel of evolution . . . or at least he would have been about 65 million years ago, when the best mammals had to offer were little rodent-like critters.  “Hey, sweetheart, how’s about riding with us?  We’ll show you a good fucking time!”  He laughed heartily at his own joke, and the three idiots riding with him joined in; what caught him off guard was that Clarisse started laughing, too.  The three of us also snickered a bit . . . the guy’s line was an unimaginative variation on a cliched line that had been around since before the Dark Ages.  What a baboon.  The fool wasn’t even driving a decent Camaro: he was driving a model from the last five years, and I knew for a fact it couldn’t compare to the mutated monster I kept under my hood.

            “I’d rather ride with someone who doesn’t need to constantly shift his shifter on dark and lonely nights, if you know what I mean,” Clarisse snidely replied.  Her response took a moment to sink into the buzzcutted buffoon, but when it did, his face twisted into a rather unattractive scowl.  Actually, he was unattractive all around, but the new facial expression did nothing for him.  Clarisse gave him her sweetest smile and threw him the finger.  “Buzz off, needledick.”

            At this point, I leaned forward so Clarisse wasn’t blocking their view of me and grinned at the idiot.  “Hey fag, wanna race your pussy car against mine?” I asked him, using a question that was designed to swipe at his sensibilities, as guys like him always got hot under the collar when you taunted their precious sexuality.  It worked, too, especially since his buddies were still laughing about the “needledick” remark, and my reply only added fuel to the fire..

            “Yeah, I’ll fuckin’ race ya, pussyboy!” Needledick growled.  “I’ll blow that ancient piece of shit off the road!”  He revved his engine a few times for emphasis, though the sound made Tommy and I laugh even harder.  No contest.  Donita, who was sitting behind Clarisse, pressed her finger against the glass and made kissing motions at Needledick.  “Your mom,” she said to him merrily.

            I cranked up the volume on my stereo (one needs proper background music when racing), revved my engine, and smirked when Needledick’s eyes widened slightly at the deep bass rumble that my car emanated when I pressed the pedal.  The time Tommy, Dorian, Katheryne, and I had spent rebuilding and souping up the engine had been well-spent, indeed.  Needledick gritted his teeth and gripped his wheel tightly, while I blew him a kiss, just to piss him off.

            The light turned green, and Needledick spun his tires off in a rather wasteful, not to mention foul-smelling, display of what he thought was power.  He shot down Sunset, while I pulled away from the light at a rather humble pace.  “Your a bloody showoff,” Clarisse chided me as I mentally counted to five.  Tommy chortled in the backseat.

            When I hit five, I mashed the accelerator to the floor, rapidly building up my r’s until I shifted into second, barking the wheels slightly.  I kept the accelerator down as I shifted from second into third, gaining speed hideously fast and heading towards the Camaro like a rocket.  He was going plenty damned fast, and I was mildly impressed that he’d managed to get this much of a lead in the time I gave him.  My speedometer kept steadily moving to the right, and after I had shifted into fourth (I was glad that at this time of night, on a weeknight, hardly anybody was out on the streets), I jogged right past him, honking my horn while everybody else flipped him off.  He yelled something at us, but it was lost in the roar of the engine and the pounding of the stereo.  As we blew past Needledick, Donita flicked the clove cigarette she was smoking out the window, and whether it was excellent aim or a bit of magick, I don’t know, but the cigarette impacted with the windshield of the Camaro right about where Needledick’s face was and erupted in a small shower of instantly dissipating sparks.  The Camaro swerved around on the road a little, and slowed down quite a bit, and we left him completely in the dust.  I slowed down to take a corner, and continued forth at a more pedestrian rate of speed (only about 10 miles above the limit).

            “Well, that’s the tenth one this year,” Tommy said from the backseat.  “Your record stands, though Dorian anticipates surpassing it within the near future.  I believe the phrase he used was something akin to, ‘I’m going to make him cry.’”

            “Many have tried, and all have failed,” I said in an English accent.

            “Showoff, showoff, showoff,” Clarisse snickered, lightly punching me in the arm.  “What are you gonna do when someone finally outruns you?”

            I reached under my seat and set the .357 Magnum on the dashboard.  “I’ve got insurance, babe,” I told her with the utmost confidence, giving her a fanged grin.

            Clarisse rolled her eyes.  “We oughtta work on my car and get some major power under the hood, too.  Then I’ll give you a run for your money.”  I didn’t doubt it . . . I’d let her drive my Chevelle before, and she was almost as aggressive behind the wheel as I was, and she liked to play “hide the headlights” when tailgating.

            “That piece of shit Monte Carlo sitting in your garage?” Tommy snorted.

            “It’s not a piece of shit!  It gets me around perfectly well, and it runs fine.  It’s just not a hot rod like this car is.”

            “It’s a piece of shit,” I told her.  “I could tell you half a dozen things on that contraption that need work just off the top of my pretty little head.”

            “It is not a piece of shit!  Donita, you just rode in it tonight; tell him it’s not a piece of shit!” Clarisse said, turning around in her seat and looking at Donita, who had lit up another cigarette with the tip of her finger and was watching the outskirts of the city pass by.

            Donita returned her look innocently and said, “I’m staying out of this.  I know how these two get whenever they talk cars.  At least they don’t have Dorian with them.  Then they’d be totally insufferable.  As far as this discussion is concerned, I’m Switzerland.”

            “Thanks a lot, Donita!” Clarisse said, scowling.

            “Hey, no problem.”

            “It is not a piece of shit!” Clarisse emphatically told us.  “I’ve never had a problem with it in the ten years I’ve had it!”

            The interior of the car was quiet for a moment, save for a chuckle from me and the sounds pumping out of the stereo.  “It’s a piece of shit, Clarisse,” Tommy informed her from the backseat.

            “Fuck you!” 

*     *     *

             The four of us walked down a dark and dingy sidewalk in one of the least appealing neighborhoods in Los Angeles, and I could taste the acrid stench of gunpowder lingering in the nearly-still air.  The sounds of gunshots, arguing and yelling, and the occasional squeal of tires mixed with the gunpowder in the air, creating a thick atmosphere of tension.  Nearly all the streetlights either smashed or burnt-out, and those that worked barely gave off any light at all, and the decaying buildings almost seemed to close in on you while you walked the dirty sidewalk.  I would have hated to walk through here if I were a regular human.  However, I’d seen far worse than this, and the occasional car fitted with the gold mags and offset rims told me that not everybody was doing all that badly.  We were deep into gang country now, and none of us were especially impressed.  I’d parked my car in a well-lit, well-protected public parking garage about six miles away, and we’d walked the rest of the way here.  The inhabitants of this place couldn’t do a thing to me, but they could do quite a bit to my car, and I wasn’t willing to leave it unguarded while we were traipsing around Gangsta-Ville, as Stacey had once called this section of town.  Now we were merely walking the streets, waiting for trouble to find us, as it always did.  Things were pretty quiet tonight here for the moment, though.  We received a lot of suspicious looks from windows and doorways as we went down the sidewalk, and one guy, who was clearly a gangbanger, made a move to reach for his gun.   However, when the four of us stopped and looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to give us an excuse to pounce him, he took his hand out of his jacket and disappeared down an alley.  It was sort of a game we played: if someone crossed our path and gave us trouble, he became a meal, but if he showed some intelligence and cleared out, he lived, and that fellow had just managed to pass the test of survival.

            As we walked along, Donita tried to interpret the graffiti that covered almost every wall, and she shook her head.  “They oughtta just firebomb this whole frickin’ place and start over.  This is pathetic.  Look,” she said, pointing to a section of wall painted in red and green, “This guy even spelled ‘fuck’ wrong!”

            Not long after, the sound of a man yelling with a very heavy urban accent separated itself from the rest of the noise, and as we drew closer, Clarisse stiffened.  “That guy’s so fired up, I can feel his presence separate from the rest of the free-floating shit in the air.”  In places like this, which was closely packed with people who were either constantly pissed off and/or depressed, Clarisse’s empathic senses didn’t work as well as they did under more normal circumstances, as they were inundated, much like how one’s hearing acuity tended to decay a bit in the middle of a room full of noisy people,  so whatever circumstances that generated enough turmoil for Clarisse to feel above the rest of the emotional din had to be interesting.  Our pace quickened as we neared a corner, and when the four of us went around it, we saw a tall, powerfully-built, starter jacket-clad gangbanger who was waving a .9mm around in the air and yelling at a woman who was backed up against a car.  As the women grew more hysterical, his yelling became even more vicious.  I could barely understand a word he was saying, his accent was so thick, but I picked out the words, “ho,” “bitch,” “kill,” and “mine” pretty clearly.  Vincent Price he certainly wasn’t.

            To her credit, the woman was putting up a decent argument, and though she was obviously quite upset, she wasn’t giving up whatever it was that the puffed-up little punk with the gun thought was his.  I growled deep in my throat.  I may feed mostly from women, but I despised seeing them mistreated in this manner, much the same way that many hunters hate to see animals needlessly abused, even though they may actively run them down and eat them during hunting season.  I started forward, but Clarisse put her hand on my chest and held me back.

            “Uh uh,” she said, her eyes narrowed and fixed on the furious gangbanger.  “This one’s mine.”

            “I’ll flip you for him,” Donita said, tightening the strip of cloth she used to hold her ponytail in place.  She had her fangs fully bared, which was a rare thing for her to do when she wasn’t on stage performing with the band.

            Tommy cracked his knuckles and silently watched the gangbanger, his eyes slits.  All of us shared the same mentality when it came to this sort of thing.  If it was one thing we hated, it was a little man who suddenly thought he was King Shit of Turd Mountain just because he had a gun in his hand.

            “Mine,” Clarisse said, her eyes glittering.

            “He’s got a gun, though—“ I started to say, momentarily forgetting just who I was talking to.  Damned overprotectiveness.  Old habits die hard, I guess.

            Clarisse granted me a slight smile and patted my cheek.  “At least you’re thoughtful, you pig.  Don’t change.”  She turned her eyes back to the scene taking place about fifty feet in front of us, and she started off towards it.  She’d called this one, so we all hung back while she made her approach.  Lorne Greene should do a show about the various ways vampires go about hunting their prey . . . moments like this just screamed to be included in a good, gory documentary.

            The ‘banger was so into screaming at the woman that he didn’t even notice Clarisse’s approach, and he jumped when she icily asked, “Is there a problem?”

            He turned his scowling face to Clarisse, and regarded the slim five-foot-ten redhead wearing the black denim jacket and jeans for a moment.  “As soon as you leave, bitch, there won’t be no problem,” he told her, his accent a lot easier to understand when he spoke as opposed to yelling.  He held his nine up in front of Clarisse’s face in what he thought was a menacing manner, but we could tell from Clarisse’s stance that she didn’t feel the slightest bit threatened.  If anything, the gesture angered her even more.  “I got my problem-solver right here, too,” he said with a grin.

            His grin disappeared when Clarisse’s left hand shot out like a viper and grabbed his throat in a steely grip.  He gasped and tried to bring his gun up to take a shot at Clarisse, but her right hand snapped out and tore it from his grasp.  She held it up in front of his face and crushed the barrel like silly putty, then flung it through the air, where it broke through a window in a home two hundred feet down the street, eliciting an impressive amount of swearing from the occupant within.  The homey raggedly gasped at her action, and tried to break her grip, without any success whatsoever.  As she held the man immobile, Clarisse turned to the frightened woman and said softly, “Ex-boyfriend of yours?”

            The woman, who was wearing a ragged blue jacket over what looked like a waitress’ outfit, nodded slowly, staring at the spectacle of the redhead easily overpowering a man who was nearly twice her size.  “I done busted my ass all week for this check at my work and I wouldn’t give it to his sorry ass is what he’s bitchin’ ‘bout.  But he didn’t earn it, so it ain’t his.  He’s always takin’ my money that I work for, and I just got sick and tired of it.”

            “Good for you,” Clarisse murmured approvingly.  She reached into the pocket of her jacket and handed the woman a thick wad of money (I have yet to meet a vampire who didn’t have a large stash of money laying around somewhere, as it always comes in useful).  “Use this.  Get out of this neighborhood.”

            The woman was even further flabbergasted by the dizzying turn of events in her life.  “Thank you . . . I don’t know what to—“

            “Just put it to good use,” Clarisse said.  “And don’t worry about this guy.  He’ll never bother you again, I promise.  Now go.  Not one more word.  Go.”

            The woman nodded and scurried down the street towards us without another word.  She slowed when she saw the three of us standing together by the corner, but Donita stepped forward and said, “We’re with her.”

            “Are you angels?” the woman asked, her eyes wide, and we all shared a slight grin.

            “Damnation angels, perhaps,” I replied with a hint of humor in my voice. 

Donita brushed her hand across the woman’s cheek and whispered a few cryptic syllables.  “Go in peace, child.”  The woman smiled at the gypsy, glanced at Tommy and I curiously, and then took off down the street.  We turned our attention back to Clarisse, who was now holding the gangbanger’s face inches from her own.

            #”Face Down” L.A. Guns Vicious Circle

            “Run for your miserable life, you bastard!” she snarled, and then opened her mouth in a predatory hiss that any of her cats would have been proud of.  When the homey saw her fangs, his struggling increased dramatically.  Clarisse flung him against a short row of trashcans sitting next to the entrance of an alley, and the sound of him crashing with the cans cut through the air.  The man wasted no time in scrambling to his feet and taking off down the alley at a dead run.  Clarisse gave him about ten seconds’ lead, and then set out after him.  We sprang from our corner and shot after them.  The hunt had been joined.

            When we entered the alley, the paved sidewalk gave way to hard-packed dirt peppered with the occasional rock or piece of glass, and the darkness grew even stronger.  The alley wasn’t as cramped as some I had been in, though the ubiquitous alley refuse was piled pretty thick in places.  I took the lead, with Tommy and Donita about side-by-side behind me, as we hurried to catch up with Clarisse.

            We kept on Clarisse’s tail pretty well, using the trail of debris following the hunter and her prey to good effect.  The homey kept knocking over garbage cans and other various alley junk in Clarisse’s path, and the pursuing vampiress simply knocked them out of her way or smashed them flat.  Clarisse could have caught him almost instantaneously with her vampiric speed, but in cases like this she let her prey run around a little bit and get their blood pumping before she went in for the kill; she usually preferred to be much more seductive and sensual with her prey before feeding, but with guys like the one she was chasing, she felt that they deserved to have the living hell scared out of them before she sent them plunging into the endless abyss of eternity, as she saw it as poetic justice that before they died they’d feel the fear they’d inspired in other people during their lifetimes.  Besides, after they’d ran from her for a while, their blood got to be pretty hot, which tasted mighty fine.  As we hurried to close to the gap, we heard Clarisse yell, “Your angel of death is coming for you!  There’s nowhere to run!”

            “You gotta love her sense of theatricality,” Tommy grunted from where he was running behind me.

            “She’s not as bad as Stacey,” I replied.

            “You mean Batman?”

            “The one and the same.”

            We pounded through the twisting alleys, drawing closer to our objective by the second.  Then we heard the gangbanger cry out in what was probably terror.  “I think she scragged him,” Donita remarked as we rounded a corner and the scent of death hit us.

            The alley ended in tall wooden fence, which created a cul-de-sac about twenty feet from the corner, and we all stopped in shock as our eyes absorbed the scene before us.

            Clarisse stood stock-still a few feet from where we stopped, and the gangbanger was laying on the ground a short distance from her, gasping for air and shaking in fear.  The smell of vampire blood, different than human blood, was thick in the air, and it mixed with the stink that the torches affixed to the walls on either side of the alley produced as they burned.

            Tommy’s eyes looked like they were going to bug out of his head, and Donita’s mouth dropped open.  I kept my face an expressionless mask.  “By the stars,” Clarisse rasped.

            “I guess this is the first time either of you have ever seen something like this,” I said quietly, referring to Clarisse and Donita, as I looked upon the crucified vampire solemnly.

            “I’ve seen vampire executions before,” Tommy said slowly, “And they seem to get uglier every time I see them.”

            The poor bastard, who was dressed very much like us (he’d probably been out hunting like we were), had been slashed in over one hundred places and then nailed to a crude cross constructed of thick wooden beams.  A roughly-drawn picture of the sun had been scrawled on the wall behind the vampire with his own blood.  Blood had dripped off of and flowed down the cross, collecting in the dirt, leaving the smell of death heavy in the air.  Some of the blood was still liquid.  This had happened recently.  I shook my head at the tableau.

            “I haven’t seen this sort of abomination before I came to America, back in Europe.  Centuries ago,” I said.  “The vampire nutcases used to do this sort of thing to those that were branded as heretics and ‘impure.’  I had hoped I’d never see it here.  I didn’t think it could happen here.  Apparently someone’s taken it upon themselves to revive some of the old traditions.”  Stacey and I had narrowly escaped this fate several times during the Dark Ages, and once again just before we left for America.  Things like this was one of the reasons we left Europe in the first place . . . and it looked like it had finally caught up with us.  Revulsion filled me at the sights and scents belonging to this scene, and I nearly shuddered with the memories.  There’s nothing quite like the feeling that one gets when confronted with a horror from the past that they had thought long behind them; I knew what this was and knew what it represented, and the thought of it caused a brief tremor to rattle my soul.  Unbidden, words from the Covenant of Blood entered my mind and swirled about for a few moments, “Thou must treat thy fellows with graciousness and love, and never strike out against them.”  Pretty words, but ultimately meaning nothing . . . where was the graciousness and love for that poor bastard upon the cross?

            “What do we do with him?” Donita asked, having regained control of her verbal facilities.

            “We leave him,” I answered.

            “What?!”

            “He’s right,” Tommy said.  “It also wouldn’t hurt to leave this up and send a few others out to look at it, so we can have more perspectives on it and so that they’re fully aware of what’s happened here, and after it’s been looked over, somebody can bring it down before any mortals see it.”

Donita nodded slowly.  “I know . . . it just doesn’t seem decent.”

            “As torn up as he is,” Clarisse said softly, “He’d probably fall apart while we were getting him down.  I can feel the fear of the victim and the surety of his killers still hanging in the air . . . whoever did this had no regrets about it and seemed to actually enjoy it.”  The statement chilled all of us, and I saw Donita, the youngest, shiver slightly.

            The sound of the gangbanger shuffling around and getting to his feet drew our attention from the crucifixion in front of us.  He pulled a knife out of his jacket and held it up threateningly, his eyes rapidly moving over us.  He was sweating profusely and small tremors continually ran through his body.  We watched him impassively.  “Y’all stand back and I’ll be leaving now,” he said, trying to sound tough, but his words came out shakily.

            “I’ve lost my appetite,” Clarisse murmured, and I could sympathize.  Judging from the looks on Tommy and Donita’s faces, they were sharing the same lack of hunger Clarisse and I felt.  Clarisse then fixed her gaze on the gangbanger.  “I may not be hungry, but I’ve got a promise to keep.”

            Her leg shot out so quickly that even our vampire eyes had a hard time tracking it, and the sound of the man’s neck shattering filled the alley.