Dead Surround - The Julia Poe Vampire Chronicles (17 page)

“I said leave me the fuck be!” she shouted clearly without a stutter. Anger seemed to keep her articulate. A quick sweep of her right leg under Maclemar’s much longer ones and a shove to the chest left him sprawled on his back. In a wink the muscular fisherman was on the floor staring incredulously into Poe’s callused fist itching to strike his face.

“I’m sorry, but you just won’t let me be!” she said. She was already wracked by guilt as she ran toward the farmhouse. She sped past a blur of faces and heard a buzzing of voices. It wasn’t until she 148

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passed a sneering Michelle and her judo partners that Poe’s mind cleared.

The girl wearing a snug tank top ignited Poe’s already incendiary mood.

“What the fuck did you just say?” asked Poe.

She wiped her snot with the sleeve of her jacket. She was glad her stutter had called it quits. Sounding tough with a stammer wouldn’t have been very effective.

“What a mouth. What a mouth. I said,” Michelle taunted, “some tough chick vampire hunter you turned out to be. One look at cattle and there you go.

Snotfest.”

Poe’s nostrils flared, and her fist was keen to connect with the girl’s petty jaw.
Remember the guy
you disemboweled? No revenge fights, please. Karma
never forgets,
said the officious voice in her mind.

However hard it was to turn her back and swallow the elephant that used to be her pride, Poe walked away.

“And some of you still say she can save us,”

Michelle scoffed, fiercely proud of her audacity for stumping the legendary Julia Poe. Her normally pleasant lips were now a twitching line. Unlike most freed cattle after the mass rescue, Michelle had worked on strengthening her body and mind by learning about self-defense with dogmatic single-mindedness. She refused to be intimidated ever again.

If she appeared thuggish, the attitude was born out of defiance. “I say we can save ourselves! We shouldn’t look to vampires and their sluts to get us out of this rut.”

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The hell with karma!
I’m going to kill that smug
bitch.
Pivoting around, she approached the bodacious curly-haired jerk who had been yanking her chain.

“Michelle, right?” Poe asked with barely contained energy. “Let me tell you a fact about me. I saved you and your friends. And you know what? It was a fucking thankless gesture, and I nearly broke my back for it. Dangerous work for a kick in the ass.

I don’t intend to put my life on the line again.”

She glared at Michelle, dressed in an outfit as provocative as a cheerleader’s, and raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Nope. First sign of invasion, me and my animals are outta here with a ‘see you later, suckas’ sign glued on the back of my Death to the Pixies shirt.” She always packed at least two of her favorite t-shirts in case of emergency. Leisurely she looked at the crowd that had gathered expecting entertainment. Besides living in fear of being retaken, most survivors hated living in constant boredom.

Repetition reminded them too much of their days as vampire food.

If they want a show, I’ll give them a pay-per-view worthy spectacle. Girl-on-girl action. We’ll
duke it out to see who’s the baddest chick in the
roost
.

“As for your insinuation that I’m Sainvire’s slut, I could snap your head for that.”

Maclemar’s tense face towered over the crowd.

For an instant Poe lost her train of thought. She’d glimpsed a very pregnant Megan standing by the second floor window of the farmhouse. Joseph and Morales flanked her spherical form with beatific expressions. Jenna, the beautiful vampire with pixie hair, stood not a few feet away.

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“Beat the crap out of her and get it over with,”

Megan told her more than once.

“Just try to snap my head, why don’t you. I’m no tree to just take your kicks without retaliation. You’re not the only toughie in these parts,” Michelle dared.

She took Poe’s silence as a cue for her to say something ironic.

“Oh don’t worry. I will,” Poe said, and she smiled for the first time. “‘If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you,’” she said with a pretty fair Kentuckian accent, eliciting some befuddled noises from the crowd. Her naturally throaty voice lent credence to the quote.

“What the hell did you just say?” Michelle asked. She was as confused as those in the crowd, and she turned to her silver-haired boxing coach. “Is she comparing me to mold?”

The man named Ted who acted as her mentor shrugged his shoulders, and his rosacea-prone face looked hot. “Dunno, but it sure sounds familiar.”

Suddenly all worries and insecurities left Poe. A genuine chuckle escaped from her throat. Her tears had dried in the heat, and Poe did not particularly care about offending the crowd that had treated her with incivility ever since she had arrived. With the Champ on her side, she couldn’t help but feel elated.

“‘Only the nose knows, where the nose goes, when the door close’. Now, where was I? Ah yes, the slut question.”

A little cruddy girl that pushed her way to the front waved at her. It was Percy, her one fan. Poe winked at the girl. “I’m nobody’s slut,” she said with intent. She looked briefly at Jenna who stood out in 151

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the crowd of wobbly-kneed ex-cattle still recuperating from years of forced bed rest.

She spotted Sainvire, elbows resting on both knees, hunched on the scallop roofing of the farmhouse. She wondered how long he’d been sitting there. Apparently he wanted a box seat to the spectacle of the week.
If it’s entertainment you want,
vampire, then sit tight.

She removed her damp hooded jacket and handed it to Percy, who looked mighty pleased to be singled out. Arms crisscrossed, Poe grabbed the ends of her Clash t-shirt and pulled it up, exposing her unmarred belly, tight from years of hard training. Her lean and nicely muscled body usually hidden by outsized clothing was presented to over seventy-strong observers. Many a fly could have darted in and out of the mouths in the crowd that had slacked open at seeing the full cleavage of her black sports bra.

“Psyche!” Poe sniggered. She tugged her shirt down and ended her brief career as a stripper.

“Michelle, that’s what I call slutty!”

It was a cheap shot, but even some hard asses cracked tightwad smiles.

“Oh please. Let’s get this on already,” cried Michelle, gesturing with her hands.

Without the jacket, Poe’s strong arms revealed myriad scars. Her damaged face scratched by a vampire nail when she was eight and a missing earlobe made it obvious to onlookers that the girl had fought the fight.

Poe tightened her ponytail and began dancing with fancy Muhammad Ali footwork, shadow boxing a confused Michelle. “‘Float like a butterfly. Sting 152

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like a bee. Your hands can't hit what your eyes can't see.’”

“That’s it,” Ted the coach said. He clapped his hands together. “She’s been reciting Cassius Clay stuff.”

“Who?” asked Michelle. Her eyes were wide from the pageantry.

“Muhammad Ali, the boxer!” the old man explained, tsk-tsking the girl for not knowing about the legendary fighter and poet.

“He’s only the best boxer that ever lived,” piped in Maclemar in his strange accent that was growing on Poe, “and possibly the most charming athlete there ever was.”

“Don’t forget the bravest,” added a distinguished black man named John who used to dabble as a San Francisco lawyer when the world was normal. The man did his share of work around the camp with aplomb. He was gracious but meager with words.

“Mr. Ali defied the draft board in the 1960s. The great man said, ‘I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me nigger!’”

The quote stung the spectators into silence with its reference to Vietnam and the ever present topic of discrimination carried on by the ruling vampires.

Many blacks in Downtown L.A., San Francisco, and other cities toiled as custodians or incinerators of dead cattle. Vampires considered their blood suspect and lower grade. John Danby had never been cattle, but he had mopped floors, cooked, and incinerated people for nearly a decade at the bidding of the empowered blood class.

The prickly quiet was sapping her strength, so Poe ended it. This was her moment after all.

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“Now, girl, put ’em up. I’ll beat you so bad you'll need a shoehorn to put your hat on.”

John Danby crossed his arms and shook his head at Poe who still kept on with Muhammadian grace.

The lines on his face crinkled, and he laughed. The other old timers laughed with him and eventually infected even the youngest of the crowd.

“Can you believe it?” he said after the noise had died down. “A girl this young quoting Ali?”

“He’s my hero, mister,” said Poe as an aside.

“Mine, too. Mine, too,” Danby agreed. “Now are we going to see a fight or what?”

Voices echoed his sentiment.

“Hurry up. I’ve got duck to roast,” complained Habib, wearing an immaculate white apron.

“Michelle, if you even dream of beating me, you'd better wake up and apologize,” paraphrased Poe, her voice deep. “I'm not the greatest; I'm the double-greatest. Not only do I knock ’em out, I pick the round.”

The girl with technically sculpted abs looked bewildered. The desire to wrest the championship belt away from Poe had dissipated somehow. The scarred vampire hunter was a comedian whose jokes Michelle didn’t understand, and she had expertly brought the crowd on her side with laughter. Michelle stood unsure about what to do. Poe was the real thing judging by the fancy moves. A killer.

“Whatsumatter?” Poe asked. Ali danced around her with impressive foot speed and threw fake jabs at her face. “Scared?”

Michelle frowned deeper. She still had her pride.

Too many people were watching the drama for her to 154

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nod in the affirmative. Every human and daywalker suddenly seemed to be around.

“Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer,” Poe said. “Hit me,” she ordered, “and don’t just use one hand!”

Michelle jabbed left which Poe easily avoided by taking one step back. The reddening girl tried again, and this time she swung with a right hook.

“And it was an air ball, ladies and gentlemen,”

Poe said, taunting Michelle to pound punches which Poe artfully dodged. Her neck extended back to avoid a punch, and a quick duck followed by a side swipe confounded Michelle.

Angry now, Michelle showered her with close calls blocked by forearms laced with calluses from banging them against bamboo and bricks. Poe could see that contact with her elbow and forearm hurt Michelle’s ungloved fists and decided to cool it off.

“And that’s why Superman don't need no seat belt.” Poe danced backwards. “Hey, you wanna know something, Michelle?”

“What?” the girl said. She was breathing hard.

“Since you’ve been such a sport, I’ll let you know a trade secret.” Poe pointed her index finger at the martial arts club.

“I’m listening.”

Deliberately dropping her Ali accent, Poe answered in a serious voice, “I gotta let you know this, Michelle. You’re a decent boxer, but you need to keep your chin down with one fist protecting the face at all times. “And most importantly, you gotta stop looking your opponent in the eye. It’s distracting and a major handicap. Look at the neck. The muscle there will tell you which side the next punch will 155

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come from. Look at my collarbone. See the subtle movements when I jab? That’s how I was able to guess which fist you were going to use and get safely out of the way.”

Michelle nodded slowly, listening. Her coach nearby pulled his Colonel Sanders beard in contemplation and whistled. Apparently he hadn’t known of the simple trick, either.

“You’re a natural athlete with a seditious body.

I’d be jealous if I thought about it too much,” Poe grinned. “I’ve been watching you. You’re pretty good at judo. But let me tell you something, and this is very important. Judo will kill
you and your tag team buddies over there.” She waved at the six men and two women looking wilted.

“It’s pretty hard to slam and trip an undead on the pavement no matter how powerful you are.

Who’s to say they’ll stay down? And believe me, you don’t want to get that close.”

If the curly-haired girl was offended, she didn’t show it. Michelle was paying attention, and Poe was encouraged. “I gotta say judo isn’t as useless as capoeira. The guy who ate my earlobe cartwheeled himself right into my extended foot.”

“Hey, don’t make me sound too ridiculous,”

yelled the culprit, Rufus, the chopper pilot who nearly destroyed the barn with his bad landing.

Poe gave Rufus a guilty, dimpled smile and shrugged.

She had no problem with capoeira as a form of expression. But as a form of in-the-trenches martial arts, she’d have to put her foot down. “If you want to last, you need to harden your body not just with muscles. It’s not pretty, but you need to start 156

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developing calluses. So when they hit you, you won’t be distracted by pain. And it’s best to use the legs.

They’re farther away from the reach of a stronger opponent.”

Poe showed Michelle how to block a punch and kicks with the knee folded close to the body, Thai-style.

“Like I said, always keep a fist against your chin for protection. It’s a perfect time to land a punch after blocking someone’s kick, so have the other fist ready at all times,” Poe explained.

One by one the spectators left to their tasks, bored by demonstrations that replaced the promised fight between two attractive young women. Even Megan and her men had left the window long ago.

“This is no fight,” said a sour-faced geezer.

“Yeah, this sucks balls,” another complained.

“Where’s the violence?” a man with a cane said aloud, prompting Danby to answer, “You’ve lived it for over ten years, Matt.”