Bite Me by Christopher Moore Page B

homeless people in the City, it was on the Chronicle ’s Web site. They reported it like it was a good thing, VICE ARRESTS DOWN or something, and another article about homeless shelters having plenty of room for the first time, ever. OMFG! They’re kitty treats, you douche nozzles! That’s why I refused to be on the school paper. Journalists are oblivious to the obvious and they won’t even let you say fuck.
    ’Kayso, when I finally got back to the love lair, the windows were all boarded up with plywood and Foo and Jared had like alphabetized all of the rats and had them stacked up and labeled and whatnot. So, I, like, ran into Foo’s arms and kissed him a good long time, then I looked around and I was all:
    “They’re dead. Our loft is full of dead rats.”
    And Jared is all, “Not dead. Undead.”
    So to Foo I’m all, “’Splain, s’il vous plaît .”
    And Foo’s like, “It’s amazing, Abby. You just have to inject them with a little vampyre blood and it turns them, but not until you kill them. It took us a while to figure that out.”
    “So you killed all these rats?”
    “I did,” goes Jared. “It made me sad, but I’m okay with it now. Science.”
    “How?”
    And Foo says, “Potassium chloride.”
    At the exact same time Jared says, “With a hammer.”
    And Jared gets all big scared anime eyes and is like, “Yeah, potassium chloride. That’s what I meant.”
    And I’m all, “You have been killing and vamping rats while the Countess and Tommy are lost and the whole city is papered with missing cat flyers, and like Chet and his minions are eating all the homeless and probably the hookers?”
    And they were like, “Well—yeah.”
    “And I had to work and go to class,” says Foo. “And polish my car.”
    And Jared’s all, “And we’ve been making sunlight jackets for those two cops, which takes like a million little wires.” And he, like, points to our coffee table, which is the only surface that doesn’t have cages full of dead rats, and there’s not even jackets there, just, like, jacket-shaped nets of wire with little glass beads all over them.
    And I’m all, “Cops can’t wear those. They look like robot lingerie.”
    And Jared is all, “ Très cool, non ?”
    “No!” I go. “And do not further endorken the French language by wrapping your disgusting penis port around it. You’ll ruin the whole language before I even learn enough to express my deep despair and dark desires en français, you rat smasher.”
    ’Kay, I know that was a little harsh, but I was angry, and in my defense, I was grinding Foo’s leg a little when I said “dark desires,” so I said it with love.
    Foo’s all, “We didn’t have time to actually get jackets. They need to be leather and they’re expensive.”
    So it’s clear that despite his mad ninja science skills, even my beloved Foo cannot be left without female supervision. But he has been going home lately, and his parents are a bad influence on him.
    So I’m like, “I got this. I’ll go see Lily.”
    Lily is my backup BFF. She used to be my BFF, but at the same time I met Lord Flood and the Countess, Lily got a book in the mail at her work, which is Asher’s Secondhand, and it convinced her that she is Death, so I’m all, “Whatever, ho.”
    And she was all, “Free to live my own nightmare, skank.”
    So we were cool.
    ’Kayso, I took the 45 bus from the dead-ratted love lair to North Beach. Walking through Chinatown sort ofcreeps me out ’cause of all the Chinese grandmothers on the street, who I’m pretty sure are talking about me because they think I have ruined Foo with my Gothy-Anglo charms. Also, I get mad dim sum cravings for which I should someday seek treatment, or, like, snacks.
    ’Kayso, at Asher’s, Lily comes out from behind the counter and gives me a hug and a big kiss on my forehead (because she is taller than me in addition to having surplus boobage).
    And I’m like, “There’s a big violet lip print on my