Bite Me: A Love Story Chapter 12

12.AlchemyThe Chinese herb surf smelled the like licorice and arid monkey butt. The Animals were piled into the narrow aisle between counters, trying to hide behind troy lees grandmother and flunk spectacularly. Behind a glass case, the shopkeeper looked older and more spooky than nanna downwind, which none of them image possible until now. It was like hed been carved from an apple, wherefore left on the windowsill to dry for a hundred years.The w whollys of the shop were lined, floor to ceiling, with little drawers of dark wood, each with a small bronze frame and a white card with Chinese characters written on it. The old man stood behind glass cases that held all manner of desic purgeed plant and animal bits, from whole sea horses and tiny birds, to shark parts and scorpion tails, to nonpareil spiky bits that looked like theyd been flown in from a nonher planet.Whats that? Drew asked Troy Lee from under a dissemble of stringy blond hair. He pointed to a wrinkled black thing.Troy Lee said several(prenominal)thing in Cantonese to Grandma, who said nearthing to the shopkeeper, who barked something back.Bear penis, said Troy Lee.Should we score some? asked Drew.For what? asked Troy.An emergency, said Drew.Sure, okay, said Troy Lee, then he said something to Grandma in Cantonese. There was an exchange with the shopkeeper, after which Troy said, How much do you want? Its fifty bucks a gram.Whoa, said Barry. Thats expensive.He says its the best dried bear penis you plenty buy, said Troy Lee.Okay, said Drew. A gram.Troy passed the order through Grandma to the shopkeeper. He snipped a tip off a bear penis, weighed it, and placed it on the pile of herbs in the sheet of composing he had laid on the counter for Drew. Grandmas reputation was much larger, and the shopkeeper had been tottering around the shop for half an hour gathering the ingredients. At one point when the old man was up on the top of the ladder at the far back corner of the shop, the Ani mals had leapt the counter and laced their arms unneurotic as a pitying rescue net, which served only to scare the bejeezus out of the shopkeeper and set Grandma off in a tirade of Cantonese scolding, to which they all responded like dogs, paying her rapt attention and tilting their heads as if they actually had some idea of what the fuck she was talking about.Lately the Animals had been all about saving lives. or so of the time, guys their age would be fairly convinced of their immortality, or at least oblivious of their mortality, but since organism murdered by a blue hooker turned lamia, then resurrected as vampires, then restored to donjon by Foo Dogs genetic alchemy, they had been feeling what they could only describe as Jesusy.Im feeling extra Jesusy, said Jeff, the marvelous jock.I always feel extra Jesusy, said Clint, who always did.Yeah, extra Jesusy, bitches Lets go save some mother-fuckers Lash had shouted, which had sort of embarrassed everyone a little, since they had been sitting around a table in Starbucks at the time, discussing the attack of the cat cloud and the information theyd exchanged with the two homicide cops. Its up to us, Lash added softly, sort of slinking into his hoody and drift on his shades.Now they watched as the old shopkeeper folded up Grandma Lees bundle of ingredients and tucked in the paper so it was as tight as a toothpick spliff, then flipped the mailboat over and wrote some Chinese characters on the back with a carpenters pencil.Whats it say? Barry asked Troy Lee.It says, vampire cat remedy.No pee-pee?Yeah. Then at that places a bunch of warnings about side effects.An hour later they were sitting around the Lee kitchen table, waiting for the big twenty-quart soup pot on the stove to come to a boil.Grandma Lee rose from her chair and tottered over to the stove with her package of herbs. Troy Lee joined her, helped her unwrap the package, and held the paper away from the burner as she scooped handfuls of herbs and animal parts into the boiling water. Foul and magical fumes bubbled out of the kettle, like the flatulence of dragons on a demon-only diet.This really going to work, Grandma? Troy Lee asked in Cantonese.Oh yeah. We use it when I was a girl in China and some vampire cats invaded the city.And they still have the normal in a shop down on Stockton Street?Its a good recipe. She scooped the pop off of the package into the water.How do you use this stuff, anyway?With get upcrackers.Its wet, how are you going to use firecrackers?I dont know how, I incisively like firecrackers.The Animals covered their noses and started filing out of the kitchen. That smells like fermented skunk ass, said Jeff.Grandma said something in Cantonese, followed by My bitches, pronounced in frighteningly accentless English.What? Whatd she say? asked Jeff.She says, Thats how you know its a good recipe, gents, said Troy Lee.THE EMPEROR A dark basement. A thousand sleeping vampire cats. One formerly human vamp ire. One huge, shaved vampire-cat hybrid. Five matches left. No way out. A half hour, maybe less, until sundown.The emperor butterfly was not a man to use profanity, but after he assessed his situation and burned his fingers with his fourth to last match, he said, Well, this blows.There was no helping it, sometimes a man, nevertheless a brave and distinguished man, must speak the harsh truth, and his situation, did, indeed, blow.Hed tried everything he could think of to escape the basement, from building a staircase to the window with void fifty-five-gallon drums, to screaming for help like a man on fire, but thus far on a platform of oil drums he couldnt adjust the leverage or the strength to move the Dumpster away from the window.He could hear Bummer and Lazarus whimpering outside in the alley.All the other windows had been bricked up, all the steel fire doors were bolted, and, of course, the elevators and cables were long gone from the shafts (which hed discovered after an hour prying the doors open with a metal sanction bar hed taken off one of the shelves where Tommy Flood lay curled up with the Chet-thing). A inhuman spray of twilight filtered down the elevator shaft from somewhere above, and it was by this that the Emperor ascertained that there was no way to climb the shaft, and that now it was dangerously close to sundown, as the light had turned a dim orange color.He would fight, oh yes, he would not go down without a battle, but even the magnificently agile little swordsman had gone down to the attacking pounce of cats. What chance did he stand in the dark with only a metal bar? Hed already checked the empty oil drums for accelerants, hoping he might burn his enemies before they awakened, but hed had no luck. The barrels had had dry goods or something solid in them, and even so, he wasnt sure how hed avoid being suffocated by burning cat fumes.Then, in thinking about how he might escape the flames, it occurred to him how he might escape. He make his way back to the store style where Chet and Tommy lay, and lit one of his precious matches to get his bearings. Yes, there was still a bolt on the door, and in addition there were enough barrels and shelves to construct a immobilise beyond that. The match went out and he felt his way across the room until he moved(p) Tommys back-cold flesh. He took his ex-friend under the armpits and dragged him off the shelf and across the room, bumping through the door-way as he went. He shoved the body to the side and cringed with the crunch it made, falling onto the immobile bodies of dead cats.Back through dark, feeling around until he found Chets fur. He felt for what he thought were the front paws, then backed across the room again, the huge shaved vampire cat in tow. Chet was lighter than Tommy had been, but not by much, and the Emperor was winded. He couldnt afford to sit. The ray of light in the elevator shaft had gone deep red.He perceive Bummer let out a ruff beyond the win dow.Run, men, away Go away from this place. Ill find you in the morning. GoHe never raised his voice to the men, even when they were in peril, and he heard Lazarus whimper at his command, but then the earpiece of Bummer growling while being dragged away by the scruff of his neck. He would get the message after a block or so. The men were safe.He pulled the metal door shut, then yanked on it until he heard a click. Then spent the imprimatur to the last of his matches looking at the simple bolt, and taking a last look around the room, trying to memorize the layout of the barrels and shelves that he would have to move in the dark.As the match burned out, he heard stirring in the room outside. There was a rack of metal shelves to the right of the door. He grabbed them and overturned them in the doorway. Yes, the door opened out, but what could it hurt. The more he put between himself and the vampire cats, the better. He scooped up armloads of the clothing at his feet and tossed them o ver the shelves, then backed across the room, throwing everything he stirred in front of him, as if he were tunneling out the other side. Finally, he crawled up in the corpulent shelf where Tommy and Chet had been and crouched, facing the door. He felt for the handle of the kitchen knife that hed tucked in his belt at the small of his back, drew it, and held it before him.There were distinct cat noises-yowls, hisses, and meows, approach path from the room outside. They were awake, up, and moving. There was a tentative scratch at the door, then a whirr of scratching, like someone had turned a power sander on outside, then it stopped as quickly as it had started and all he could hear was his own breathing.No. There was movement. The slight rustle of cloth, then a low, trilling purr. And it was coming from inside the door, he was sure of it. The Emperor clamped the knife in his teeth and lit his last match. The room was as he thought it would be, a pile of debris and barrels, but sw irling out from under shelving in front of the door was a layer of mist, moving across the floor toward him, undulating in tiny waves that approximated the sound of a purr.