Dead Surround - The Julia Poe Vampire Chronicles (27 page)

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Poe covered the vampire in his coat and thought about Penny, Chops, and the baby. She couldn’t let any of them die, especially the love of her life.

“Where can I get Plasmacore around here, Kaleb?

Joseph said you’ve planted crates of it everywhere for emergency. And this is an emergency.”

Sainvire, shivering, answered, “There’s an abandoned mine about nine miles south of here. We hid some Plasmacore there.”

Poe picked up her pack and nodded. “I’ll go get some right now.”

“Be sensible, Poe,” said the vampire who was finding it harder to speak. “Scouts are all around.”

Poe leaned down and kissed Sainvire’s cold lips.

“Just point which way is south, and I’ll take it from there.” Outside of Downtown Los Angeles she never did figure out her directions. “Don’t worry. I have Penny with me.” As if to assure the vampire, the dog placed a dirty paw on Sainvire’s leg.

“You keep to the trees. Away from the green, the ground will be rock and gravel. Avoid walking on those until the very end when you see an abandoned mine shaft. Trees were planted in threes every quarter-mile or so on the gravel end. They’ll let you know you’re heading the right direction.”

“Won’t be a problem with my Skywalker night helmet.”

Sainvire grabbed Poe’s arm before she could leave. “Have I ever told you how much I love you, Julia Poe?” he asked in a weak voice. He was near delirium.

Poe wiped away errant tears. “Yes, Kaleb.

You’ve told me twice before, and I’d really like to hear it again and again. Hold on for me, okay?”

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The vampire didn’t answer. He had lost consciousness.



“Help Sainvire, Great Ali,” she muttered as she sprinted in the dark followed by her terrier. She prayed to anyone listening to help Joseph deal with his loss and for Perla to wake up from her cattle stupor. She was annoyed with herself for not properly thanking Michelle for backing her up.
What a great
gal she is
.

Then there was Maclemar. She’d known him but a short time, but she was positive she loved him. Not the caliber of love she felt for Kaleb, but it was special all the same. He was willing to die for her, an inconsequential girl with attitude he’d met only days before.

Poe tripped on a jutting rock her helmet had failed to illuminate and skinned her elbows. She gulped for air. She was living a Twilight Zone episode.
The girl who jogged until she dropped dead.

Exhausted having run nearly fifteen miles that night, Poe looked down at Penny. The dog was breathing erratically and panting. “I’m sorry, girl.

This is a hell of a weird night. Thank you for sticking with me.” She sat down on the ground and hugged the dog that smelled of soil. “Please always stay with me, Pen. I know I put you through a lot.”

Losing side or not, Poe was dogged to fight on by the time the sun rose in the pinkish eastern sky.

She needed Plasmacore for Sainvire.
Whoever gave
me the gift to obliterate and to live this long must
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have a purpose for me. And that is to end the reign of
corrupt, racist, and gluttonous vampires.

“I can’t die. It’s not allowed,” she said out loud.

“I resolve to be a hero like Sainvire. I’m gonna shake the very foundation of this jacked up society. Only this time I’m winning. And you’re going to be by my side, Penny Pen.”

Shaky legs, screaming lungs and all, she stood up and resumed running. Her body was so tired that she felt feverish. She tracked the random trees planted on the other side of the green. They reached the mine in about two hours, longer than what she would have liked. Her knees felt arthritic, and her joints ached. She paused not too far from the mine to hydrate her dog and herself with her last bottle of water. Sitting down on the dirt, Poe stretched a leg.

She took out a Ziploc full of jerky sticks from her pack and passed them to Penny who chowed them down like the end was near. As she was extending the other leg for a stretch, Penny growled in her tongueless manner. In that awkward position she found five mustached undead, high-powered rifles in their arms, surrounding her.

“What have we here?” said the burliest of the five. “Could it be Public Enemy Number Two?”

Poe inched her hand to her holster, but the burly guy said, “Hey hey. You reach for that gun, your ass is mine.” He motioned for the others to disarm her.

“Check everywhere, including her ankles. This little girl is slippery.”

Three men dressed in LAPD blues stripped her of her pack and weapons until Poe felt naked. One of them even cupped a feel which made Poe seethe with hate.

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“Want me to shoot the dog, Gary?” asked the runtiest of the lot.

“No!” Poe screamed, scrambling to her knees and hugging Penny to her upper body. “No one touches my dog!” Poe felt ill. Sainvire was dying and getting Plasmacore to him seemed impossible now.

Her energy was so drained, and as far as she could tell, the five men were vampires.

“Sainvire is injured, isn’t he, girl?” asked Gary, the ringleader. “Isn’t that why you’ve come to the mine for Plasmacore?”

“Plasmacore?” asked Poe innocently. “I don’t know anything about Plasmacore. I’m only trying to get away from Revs and vamps from the dark side.”

“Don’t bullshit us, bitch,” a vampire named Henry with heavyset eyelids said. “You and your dog were last seen carried away by Sainvire. We have it on good authority that he was cut up by a sword laced with garlic oil and shot multiple times. And we know every Plasmacore stash location within a fifty-mile distance. The turkeys you run with left behind a map.”

Poe glanced about. She looked like a tiny football player in her helmet. She saw five vicious-looking dead that would never let her escape. The price on her head was too high. She sniffed, “I don’t know about Plasmacore, officer. As for Sainvire, he died three hours ago. I watched him turn to mush.”

“She’s lying,” one of the generic mustached men accused.

“Look, asshole,” said Poe. She rose and held her dog protectively like a baby. “Sainvire was the love of my life. I watched him die, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I don’t really give a fuck if you 247

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think I’m lying.” She wiped away tears, real tears, for she knew Sainvire was as good as dead without Plasmacore.

“Why did you come here then?” asked Henry.

“I was hoping to find Sainvire’s people,”

explained Poe angrily. “Me and Penny are alone now.”

“Although I feel for your loss,” a round-faced civilian said, “That’s what you get for fucking a dickhead thief like Sainvire. Do you know how hard it’s been for us? We’ve had to drink tainted black blood, Mexican blood, and Asian blood. The blood of our old janitors and bedpan cleaners. Fuck, it’s just sick!”

Poe, glad that she didn’t stutter anymore, laughed. “Man, you’re hilarious! If you weren’t flapping your mouth in semi-lucid sentences, I’d think you were a chicken flapping its wings or something.”

In a blur the civilian lunged at Poe. She didn’t see him coming nor did she see Gary block his way.

With a shove Gary pushed him away from Poe. “I’m not going to lose my stake, Robert. You keep your hands to yourself. Trench is circling his chopper as we speak, so hold your horses.” He looked at Poe.

“And you. Keep your trap shut, or I’ll kill your dog.

Got it?”

Poe clutched Penny tighter until the dog whined in discomfort. “Got it.”



Poe held Penny for three hours, even refusing to allow the dog to do her natural business. She wept 248

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and did not care that the vampires jeered at her.

Sainvire was dying or possibly dead, and she couldn’t help him. His light gray eyes were blazed in her mind’s eye. Life without him hurt, and her grief even eclipsed her vow for vengeance.

Lights appeared at the horizon. Gary flicked his flashlight on and off until the sound of a chopper was heard. The vampire had confiscated her helmet, and the lights of the descending helicopter, though frightening, gave her something to look at besides the stars.
I’m dead,
she thought gravely.
I don’t even
care to pray anymore
.

The five told their boss about Sainvire when he landed. Trench had eyes only for the girl who had irreversibly altered his life for the worse.

Traces of old tears decorated her dusty face. The child he had seen at Goss’ Downtown loft was gone.

Facing him was a healthier Julia Poe with some meat on her bones, and her arms clung to the ratty dog. He had expected her to look defeated. He hadn’t anticipated the look of grief.

“I’ve waited for this moment,” were the first words that escaped the master vampire’s lips. “How come I’m not as happy as I should be?”

Poe shrugged. She did not feel verbally combative. She looked at Quillon Trench’s face expecting to see the burnt crags she’d left on his skin when she had sprayed him with garlic water. About his face he wore a scarf that only showed his intelligent blue eyes. Rumor was he didn’t leave his home any longer. The nightclub he owned at the Bonaventure Hotel shut the moment Morales had shoddily blown up the building. He never tried to open another club. Trench didn’t even help defend 249

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the highly productive blood farms in Los Angeles.

Only his own.

“Are you going to kill me, or are you going to torture me somewhere else?” asked Poe tiredly. Her husky voice intrigued Trench.

“I remember your voice well, Julia,” he said.

“Per your question, I’m going to take you back to Los Angeles. And as for you five, you will be well rewarded. Just make sure you don’t get burned a couple of hours from now before dusk.

“What do you mean?” asked Gary. “Aren’t you taking us with you?”

“No room, my man,” he said. He gestured to Poe to step into the transport.

“Are we going to be picked up by one of the Hummers?” asked Henry who was looking with panic at his pals. None of them were sun-immune.

“The Hummers are in San Francisco with Nesbitt’s battle army. Sorry about that.”

“You mean to—”

Trench raised his hand. “Julia, get that dog out of my chopper.” The look of alarm on Poe’s face gave him the satisfaction he had been looking for earlier.

“No. Please, I can’t leave my dog. She has to come with me,” she said. Her lips trembled.

“No dirty rats on this chopper,” said Trench adamantly.

“Sir—” began Gary.

Trench faced Gary whose bulky body seemed to sag at the scrutiny of the master vampire. “I don’t like being interrupted, Gary. It’s very rude.” He turned back to Poe who held her dog more tightly.

“Julia, what did I just say?” he said.

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Poe broke down. All the misery she’d experienced that night coalesced at that moment.

Megan’s death, Sainvire’s death, and parting from her friends diminished her.

“Please,” she cried. Her shoulders shook with every sob. “K-kill me, but don’t take her away from me.”

Curiosity replaced Trench’s annoyance. The famous cattle rustler and vampire killer was sobbing over a dog and begging his permission. All those years he had wasted hating her for disfiguring him.

Every night he had thought about the torture he was going to inflict on Julia Poe. After all, because of her he had to bind his face with a scarf when he went out in public. The beautiful people he used to surround himself with disgusted him now. Most of them he had dismissed for they reminded him too much of his flawed face.

And here she was begging him, her beautiful dark eyes inundated with grief.

“Sir, please. You can’t just leave us here,” said Henry.

Trench turned his head to Henry, flew at him, and grabbed his hair. He took a dagger from a sheath on his belt and slit Henry’s throat from ear to ear then stabbed him in the heart. He stood beside Gary’s corpse and wiped the black liquid from his hand onto the dead’s shirt.

“I hate being interrupted,” muttered Trench. “Do you want my men to mow you down?” he asked the four who had caught Poe while pointing out three vamps replete in S.W.A.T. uniforms. “Or do you want to hide out in the mine shafts to avoid the sun?”

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“We’ll hide out, sir,” said Gary. The three others echoed his answer.

“Good. Now disappear from my sight.”

“Sir,” Gary said fearfully.

“Yes?” asked Trench with venom.

“We’ve worked for you for over ten years,” he said in disbelief.

Trench’s eyes softened. “You five have been very loyal to me, and I’m truly sorry about this. But times are different now. I can only keep the best people. I can’t afford to waste limited cattle blood on unimaginative pedestrians like you.” He waved his hand at them. “Shoo now and good luck.”

He walked back toward the helicopter door to study Julia Poe once more. Before he could say anything, Julia Poe sniffed and said, “Let me keep my dog. You can kill me however you want. I won’t protest.”

Trench adjusted the scarf about his face. “Then what am I going to do with your dog afterward?”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” said Poe.

“I’ll kill her myself before you torture me.”

Trench, two inches shorter than Sainvire, laughed. “Why don’t you just let her go in the wilderness here? I’m sure that’s better than committing doganasia?”

“Because,” Poe began.

“Because what, Julia Poe?” Trench asked curiously, his brow rising.

“Because there might be a chance we’ll escape from you,” said Poe. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

Trench laughed so hard that he held on to his sides.
The impudence!
He handed Poe a handkerchief 252

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with his monogram sewed on and said, “I’d like to see you try.”

253

THEY TOOK HER DOG away. Insurance, they said.

Trench ordered her to take hour-long baths in scented oils and dense bubbles that made her slip in the overlarge tub. The master vampire now owned Downtown’s most prized of all buildings, the undulating metallic Disney Concert Hall whose form flowered into what some say looked like a ship’s mast or peeled-back cabbage leaves. Whatever the description, the building had no inferior photographic angles. Trench had added luxurious rooms and even more sinful bathrooms to the symphony building.