when he decided to act out the remainder of his unwritten vampire adventure novel, The Dark of Darkness, for a hundred rats caged in plastic and two vampires encased in bronze.
“So the evil Blood Queen dons her chrome strap-on of death and goes after Lucifer 2. But Jared Whitewolf is on her like a fat kid on a cupcake, parrying her blows with his dagger of death, or Dee Dee, as it is known.” Jared pirouetted, a move he’d learned in ballet class at age six, and slashed the air, low and fast, with the double-edged dagger held backhand so as to sever his imaginary enemy’s femoral artery, a move he’d learned in Soul Assassin Five on the Xbox (although it was harder to do while wearing platform boots than it was in the video game). The dagger was realenough, twelve inches of double-edged high-carbon stainless steel with a dragon hilt. Jared carried it because he thought it made him look badass when doormen took it away from him at clubs.
“And he strikes her weapon in half!” he said, leaping and bringing the blade around a little too fast. He turned his ankle, lost his balance, and as he fell, the dagger put a deep nick in the bronze statue.
“Ow!” He sat on the floor holding his ankle and rocking back and forth in the yoga position known as the “freaked-out half-lotus.” Then he noticed the gash he’d put in the bronze, directly over Jody’s right clavicle.
“I’m sorry, Countess,” Jared said, still a little breathless from his battle. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just that I had to save Lucifer 2. You’d do the same thing for Lord Flood if he was in the story.”
Jared buffed at the bronze with his sleeve, but the gash was deep and wasn’t going to go away with polishing. “Abby’s going to kill me. I’ll patch you, Countess. Just hang on. Toothpaste. We used it on the wall that time we drank Abby’s mom’s vodka and played cross-country darts in her living room. Hang on a minute.”
Jared let the heavy dagger drop to the floor, climbed to his feet, winced, then limped off to the bathroom to look for toothpaste.
He located a tube of all natural tartar control with baking soda just as the sun dropped under the horizon in the west. Out in the living room, a needle-thin stream of mistbegan leaking out of the gash he’d made in the bronze statue. Toothpaste probably wouldn’t have fixed it.
THE ANIMALS
In the last two months, the Animals, the night stock crew at the Marina Safeway, had hunted an ancient vampire, blown up his yacht, stolen millions of dollars’ worth of art, sold it for pennies on the dollar, spent the remaining hundreds of thousands on gambling and a blue hooker, got turned into vampires, were torn apart by zoo animals, then burned up by sunlamps when they attacked Abby Normal, then turned, by Foo, back into seven guys who stocked shelves at the Safeway and smoked a little too much weed. And as it often is with adventurers, after the adventure, they were feeling a little bored, and a little worried that nothing exciting would ever happen to them again.
After you’ve battled the darkness, then become the darkness, then shagged the darkness, frozen turkey bowling and skiing behind the floor-scrubbing machine just doesn’t hold the same thrill. After you’ve shared a blue prostitute with your buddies to the tune of a half a million dollars, only to have her kill and resurrect you before disappearing into the night, swapping stories of banging babes was a bit of an anticlimax. After all, they worked nights and the oldest of them, Clint, was only twenty-three, so most of their stories were gross exaggerations, wishful thinking, or outright lies anyway. Even crucifying Clint with zipties on the potato chip rack every other Friday didn’t seem fun anymore, and last week they had just left him hanging, thrashing in the Doritos, and went off to stock their aisles before he could even forgive them for knowing not what they did. Tragic, really, to be young, free, and
“So the evil Blood Queen dons her chrome strap-on of death and goes after Lucifer 2. But Jared Whitewolf is on her like a fat kid on a cupcake, parrying her blows with his dagger of death, or Dee Dee, as it is known.” Jared pirouetted, a move he’d learned in ballet class at age six, and slashed the air, low and fast, with the double-edged dagger held backhand so as to sever his imaginary enemy’s femoral artery, a move he’d learned in Soul Assassin Five on the Xbox (although it was harder to do while wearing platform boots than it was in the video game). The dagger was realenough, twelve inches of double-edged high-carbon stainless steel with a dragon hilt. Jared carried it because he thought it made him look badass when doormen took it away from him at clubs.
“And he strikes her weapon in half!” he said, leaping and bringing the blade around a little too fast. He turned his ankle, lost his balance, and as he fell, the dagger put a deep nick in the bronze statue.
“Ow!” He sat on the floor holding his ankle and rocking back and forth in the yoga position known as the “freaked-out half-lotus.” Then he noticed the gash he’d put in the bronze, directly over Jody’s right clavicle.
“I’m sorry, Countess,” Jared said, still a little breathless from his battle. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just that I had to save Lucifer 2. You’d do the same thing for Lord Flood if he was in the story.”
Jared buffed at the bronze with his sleeve, but the gash was deep and wasn’t going to go away with polishing. “Abby’s going to kill me. I’ll patch you, Countess. Just hang on. Toothpaste. We used it on the wall that time we drank Abby’s mom’s vodka and played cross-country darts in her living room. Hang on a minute.”
Jared let the heavy dagger drop to the floor, climbed to his feet, winced, then limped off to the bathroom to look for toothpaste.
He located a tube of all natural tartar control with baking soda just as the sun dropped under the horizon in the west. Out in the living room, a needle-thin stream of mistbegan leaking out of the gash he’d made in the bronze statue. Toothpaste probably wouldn’t have fixed it.
THE ANIMALS
In the last two months, the Animals, the night stock crew at the Marina Safeway, had hunted an ancient vampire, blown up his yacht, stolen millions of dollars’ worth of art, sold it for pennies on the dollar, spent the remaining hundreds of thousands on gambling and a blue hooker, got turned into vampires, were torn apart by zoo animals, then burned up by sunlamps when they attacked Abby Normal, then turned, by Foo, back into seven guys who stocked shelves at the Safeway and smoked a little too much weed. And as it often is with adventurers, after the adventure, they were feeling a little bored, and a little worried that nothing exciting would ever happen to them again.
After you’ve battled the darkness, then become the darkness, then shagged the darkness, frozen turkey bowling and skiing behind the floor-scrubbing machine just doesn’t hold the same thrill. After you’ve shared a blue prostitute with your buddies to the tune of a half a million dollars, only to have her kill and resurrect you before disappearing into the night, swapping stories of banging babes was a bit of an anticlimax. After all, they worked nights and the oldest of them, Clint, was only twenty-three, so most of their stories were gross exaggerations, wishful thinking, or outright lies anyway. Even crucifying Clint with zipties on the potato chip rack every other Friday didn’t seem fun anymore, and last week they had just left him hanging, thrashing in the Doritos, and went off to stock their aisles before he could even forgive them for knowing not what they did. Tragic, really, to be young, free, and
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