Suck It Up and Die (2 page)

Morning grabbed a breath and exhaled. The past couldn’t be undone, but knowing Portia was coming banished his haunting thoughts. In a few minutes, she would appear around the corner like a second sunrise.

He checked out the street scene. People were in the full-tilt hustle of getting to work. Some carried coffees procured from the West Village’s ubiquitous baristas. Others waited in line at the Nosh Cart for their a.m. brew and chew. On the opposite corner was a food cart that wouldn’t have been there a year before. It was called Leech Treats and served leeches engorged on animal blood. While grocery stores now stocked animal and synthetic blood drinks for Leaguer vampires, Leech Treats was one of the trendier ways for a vampire to get his daily dose of red stuff.

Since Leaguer vampires had removed humans from the drink pyramid, the term “bloodsucking fiend” was no longer politically correct, and the past year had seen
an evolution of what to call Leaguers’ dietary habits. “Veinitarian” had had a brief reign but was shot down by vegan vampires, like Morning, who didn’t drink humanely milked animal blood. Other than Blood Lite, vegan vamps quaffed vegetable-protein blends like Gourd Gorge, V-Sate, and Suckilicious. After “veinitarian” didn’t stick, the term that did came from the prefix for blood: “sang.” A “sanguivore” is a creature who survives by consuming only blood.

Whenever Morning observed one of the street carts that catered to sanguivores, he liked to play a guessing game. Was the customer buying a carton of Leech Treats
really
a Leaguer vampire? Or were they one of the vampire wannabes doing everything in their power to pass as a vamp?

A gothy-looking girl with magenta hair stepped up to the cart. Morning noticed she had already conquered the first error goths make when trying to pass as vampires: they can’t give up their multiple piercings and jewelry array. Anyone who knows vampire basics knows they don’t pierce. What would be the point? The piercing would heal itself in a minute. Even if they made sure the piercing healed
around
a piece of jewelry, the vampire’s super-concentrated biochemistry would soon dissolve the metallic invader like a nail in acid.

Morning watched the young woman swap some bills for a small carton of Leech Treats. She passed test number two: she didn’t squirm or freak from the hand massage you get from a carton of fat, happy leeches. Her expression remained fixed with the right mix of boredom and gloom, she had learned from watching
The Vampire Diaries
, and by perfecting the look of gaunt vampires obese with melancholy.

As goth girl ambled away Morning concluded she was really a vampire and not a wannabe trying to fool her fellow mortals or hook up with a Leaguer at the leech cart. Then he saw something fall off the front of her leather jacket. Even with his enhanced vision, the thing was too small to identify. He didn’t have to guess. A pigeon flapped over and sucked up what had fallen: a bread crumb. The girl had already had breakfast, a
solid
breakfast; she was a wannabe after all.

Morning didn’t get Lifers like her, or any goth who wanted to sacrifice their mortality to become a vampire. Sure, mortality was life-shortening, but the alternative was being frozen at the same age forever. Besides vampire wannabes, Morning had heard about “wanna-bleeds”: Lifers who hooked up with backsliding Leaguers who popped fangs once in a blue moon and tapped the human keg for a pint. But the Lifers and Leaguers who supposedly practiced this “consensual bloodlust” had to do it in secret because it broke the Leaguers’ second commandment: “You shall not drink anything but properly milked animal blood or artificial blood substitutes.”

Whether the tales of consensual bloodlust were fact or urban legend didn’t matter to some Lifer extremists. They were convinced that Luther Birnam and his Leaguer army were the Trojan horse at America’s gate. They trusted Leaguers like they trusted a pack of rabid coyotes. They claimed it was only a matter of time before Leaguers turned all the wannabes into vampires, spawned legions of bloodsucking fiends, and laid siege to the mortal population until red-blooded Americans had been corralled into feedlots for fattening and bleeding by “the vampire empire.”

It was these anti-vampire extremists who motivated
Morning to wear a baseball cap and sunglasses or fake glasses in public. He didn’t want to be recognized and martyred by some hate-mongering zealot armed with a stake, screaming, “Die, mothersucker!”

Morning took another drink of Blood Lite and glanced up the street. The second sunrise came around the corner.

Portia.

Taking in Portia as she came down the sidewalk, Morning pulled off his sunglasses so as not to miss a detail. The long ringlets of her dark hair bounced and glistened in the sunlight. In the past year she had lost most of her gangly-ostrich look. When Morning first met her, he fell in love with the way her long limbs jounced in different directions. But the filling out she had done since then had gathered her limbs, trimmed her flapping sails. Her arms and legs moved in sync now, obeying a torso that was captain of her ship. Morning had no complaints. What she had lost in jouncitude she had gained in curvatude. He only wished he could say something similar about himself, that what he had lost in stickitude he had gained in hunkatude. No such luck. He still looked like Gumby’s long-lost twin.

Portia strode into the shade of the awning, dropped her backpack, and swept into the chair opposite him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Morning echoed with a grin.

She rubbed her hands over the napkin-covered croissant. “Gee, is it something yummy like a piggy-cheese croissant or a dead rat?” She whipped off the napkin and groaned. “Oh man, a piggy-cheese croissant again?”

“That’s your favorite,” he protested.

She leaned forward with a crazed look. “Never underestimate a girl’s right to change her mind. But, no matter”—she plucked his sunglasses off the table, slipped them on, and lifted the croissant—“I’ll just pretend it’s dead rat.” She chomped off a corner. “Hmm, nice rodent.”

Morning shook his head with a chuckle.

“Seriously, Morn,” she said, not sounding the least bit serious, “would you still like me if I was a ratavore, or would you dump me?”

Even knowing she was kidding, the word jolted him, especially since she had just mentioned a girl’s right to change her mind. “I would never do that. I could never du-du—” His tongue tangled on the word.

She waved the tattered croissant. “Right, forget the d-word. It’s a horrible thought.” She took a swig of latte. “Notice I didn’t say it was ‘a dreadful thought.’ ”

“Yeah, thanks.” Morning pulled a pair of fake eyeglasses from his pocket and put them on.

Portia chuffed a laugh. “Thank goodness you’re all incognito now. I can get my good-luck rub.” She pulled off his cap and rubbed his shaved head.

He submitted with an eye roll. “Feel better?”