Fat Vampire Value Meal (Books 1-4 in the series) (52 page)

Nikki took his hands. Reginald then told her to grip higher up on him, so she grabbed his upper arms. Then, when Maurice was between them with their arms gripping each other, she understood. So did Maurice.
 

“Wait,” said Maurice. “No. Don’t.”
 

Reginald squeezed Nikki’s arms and they both stood up. Maurice hung between their interlocked arms like baggage. Reginald pulled them closer together, creating a Maurice sandwich with Reginald and Nikki bread. Then he rotated them all, turning his back toward the Asbury’s front door.
 

“Come on, you bloodsucker!” he shouted at Maurice. “You wanna live forever?” Then he stepped out into the sun, back first.
 

The pain was immediate and intense. Reginald didn’t understand what brought on his painless state when it came, but he knew that appearances occasionally to the contrary, it wasn’t under his conscious control. It wasn’t coming now, possibly because he was so exhausted. He could feel every particle of himself beginning to bubble and boil. It was much worse than last time, either because the sun was more direct or because he’d gotten older.

Nikki screamed as a ray stuck her face, creating an immediate welt. Reginald, with all his size, cast a large westward shadow, but it wasn’t enough. They had to move, or else they’d die in order — men first.
 

The vampires from the lobby had reached the demarcation line drawn by the sun. They all stopped, watching the smoking trio in the sun, aghast. Not one of them stepped forward. They wanted the Deacon’s blood, but not this badly. In the crowd, Reginald spotted the head of Charles, who looked equally furious and shocked.
 

“Any time now, Nikki!” said Reginald.
 

She stopped screaming, made an apologetic noise, then tensed up and arched her back. Reginald felt his feet come off of the ground. The tension between their arms increased as her muscles took on his and Maurice’s weight. Between them, his arms catching sidelong glances of sun and turning black, Maurice groaned.
 

Then Nikki ran — moving sideways and backward as needed, keeping Reginald’s massive and blistering back to the rising sun.
 

C
OKE

WHEN DUSK CAME, THEY COULD see it around the edges of the old-fashioned cellar entrance to the bar’s basement. The angled basement doors faced west, and for the previous several hours, Nikki had been watching a line of sunlight that came from around its edges as it moved across the concrete floor. Every half hour, she made a mark in the dust, and as the day ended, the lines became farther and farther apart. Finally the direct sun was blocked by buildings on the horizon, and thirty minutes later, the hues around the door’s edges turned from yellow to orange to red to blue.
 

Reginald’s back, Nikki’s face, and Maurice’s arms had healed more or less instantly once they’d tumbled into the basement. The door had had a lock on it, but Nikki had stooped and snapped it easily. Once they were inside, there was little point in trying to secure the entrance, but Reginald ran a shovel through the inside handles just the same.
 

Now that night had come, they were free to leave the basement, but there were two problems: one, they didn’t have anywhere to go, and two, the vampires at the Asbury were free to move around as well. Reginald was still mentally exhausted, and had slept most of the day. He didn’t want to try another daring escape but felt sure he could if needed, especially if they had more room to maneuver — a luxury they hadn’t had inside of the Council.
 

Maurice and Nikki had already marveled at their escape. Maurice said he’d never fought so well, and Nikki said the same. “It was like I couldn’t miss,” said Maurice. “I just swung and moved and dove, and somehow did it perfectly every time.”
 

When Reginald explained his perception of events, the others looked at him as if he had barfed up a Buick. They said they had no experience of being led or of communicating with Reginald. But that made sense, Reginald decided. Their minds couldn’t possibly process signals as quickly, on a conscious level, as he was sending them. Instead, they’d received Reginald’s directions as subconscious suggestions.
 

“That means you can control vampire minds,” Maurice told him.

“Only the minds of vampires I’m related to by blood,” said Reginald.
 

“Quick,” said Nikki. “Make me take off my top.” Despite their peril, Nikki had been fighting her usual cravings for food and sex all day. She’d always had more experience fighting the former.

“Yes, do that,” Maurice said to Reginald.
 

Once it was dark outside, Maurice wanted to move. He thought it was too risky to be so close to such a large collection of those who wanted them dead, but Reginald saw it as a brilliant hiding place for the same reason — hiding in plain sight. Eventually, they decided to move when Nikki cast the deciding vote on Maurice’s side, but nobody knew where to go. They couldn’t go to Maurice’s house, or Reginald’s house, or Nikki’s apartment. They certainly couldn’t go to the office.
 

Reginald found himself thinking of Todd Walker. He was truly an orphan now, and if the vampires at the Council didn’t kill him, he’d be raised by killers. Remembering how Walker was earlier, the notion was nothing but terrible.
 

They’d spent much of the day using their cell phones to call people who needed to know their predicament. The list was very small. Maurice called his wife and a few friends. Reginald called his mother and Nikki called her sister. All three of them, throughout the day, tried to call Claire’s house and the hospital where her mother was still convalescing, but they got nowhere. Victoria was asleep, and twice the person they spoke to said that there was no little girl around to hand the phone to. The one time a nurse reported that there
was
a girl in the room, said girl told the nurse that she didn’t want to talk.
 

“She blames me,” said Reginald.
 

“She blames all of us,” said Nikki.
 

But it bothered all three of them, because both Claire and Victoria made obvious targets for the Council’s ire. All they could do was to hope that the Nation was too distracted as it disintegrated to think of revenge or tidying up loose ends. They certainly hadn’t tidied up the Council, which, by the way, would make a nice, stationary target should attack be in Reginald’s plans.
 

For the moment, attack very much wasn’t in any of their plans.
 

It was over. The Council was falling apart, the entire Nation was out of control, and the vampires of at least the United States were free to kill, and kill, and kill until they’d righted the balance enough to please the imagined whim of their creators.
 

“At least we can watch the action unfold on Fangbook,” said Nikki. She’d been trying to get at the network all day from her phone, but there was no data coverage in the basement.
 

“And vote,” said Maurice. “I, personally, am planning to vote against everything Charles mentions, just to be a dick.”

“About that,” said Reginald. “You said that you were worried that they wouldn’t have a leader. But they will have a leader, and it won’t be good.”
 

“I’d figured that out,” said Maurice.
 

“It’ll be Charles,” said Reginald.

“I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to go back and tell them that it’s cool to just wander aimlessly, without direction.”
 

“Get me my Coke back,” said Reginald. He’d left an open can in the Council room and had been complaining all day about being thirsty. Nikki offered him her blood, saying it would at least satisfy the feeling in his mouth. Reginald made disgusted sounds.
 

They were all sitting on the floor, in a triangle, all of their legs pointing at roughly the same spot in the middle of the floor. They’d decided to get up and move to a different hiding spot, but nobody knew where that might be. Inertia was currently winning a hard-fought battle with sensibility. It had been an exhausting night.
 

“We need to go,” said Maurice.

“Where?” said Nikki.

 
“Somewhere I can get a Coke,” said Reginald.
 

Nobody got up.
 

“I don’t know where to hide,” said Reginald. “I don’t know what to do about all this killing. I don’t know what to do about the Vampire Nation, the Council, or Charles Barkley.”
 

“Maybe Charles Barkley will get assassinated by those he serves,” said Maurice.
 

“I was talking about the basketball player,” said Reginald.

“So was I,” said Maurice.
 

Reginald kicked a rock. It skittered across the floor and into a corner. He really did want a Coke.

“I don’t know what to do about
Claire
,” said Nikki. Nikki had become very possessive of Claire since becoming a vampire. She’d never have children in the literal sense, and Reginald suspected that Claire was her way of reconciling the conflict she seemed to feel about it.
 

Reginald stood up. “I want a Coke,” he said. “So I’m overcoming my sloth, and am ready to go.”

Maurice stood up, nodded, and said, “I want a crepe.”
 

Nikki reluctantly dragged herself off of the floor, then brushed at her clothing to free it of dust. She looked at Maurice. “You don’t like human food,” she said.
 

“No, but I like the
idea
of crepes. I like a culture that
makes
crepes. And on a totally unrelated topic, I thought of a good place for us to hide.”
 

Reginald took a deep breath, clearing his mind should he require his concentration during their exit. They wouldn’t be able to take the car. One of the others would have to carry him, and they’d have to run all the way to the airport.
 

“Take the back roads, driver,” said Reginald after he’d hopped up onto Maurice’s back in the alley, like an oversized piggyback rider. Nikki looked over at the pair and laughed out loud. After the night and day they’d had, it was good to hear her laugh.
 

“But head for the terminal, not your buddy’s cargo hanger,” Reginald added. “I want a Coke.”
 

The three vampires vanished in two blurring lines, exhausted but with at least a destination in mind, content to forget the world for at least a little while.

FAT VAMPIRE 4: HARDER BETTER FATTER STRONGER

B
IG
P
USSY

GRETA WALKED INTO REGINALD’S ROOM in the catacombs beneath the Chateau de Differdange holding a pickle in one hand and a coffee cup filled with blood in the other. She stood in the doorway, watching Reginald with a sympathetic expression on her face, and then dunked the pickle as if it were a long green donut. It came out as red as a fat tube of lipstick. Carefully holding the pickle above the cup to catch errant drips, Greta took a bite. Her fangs were out. The pickle crunched.

“I’m glad you’re here, Greta,” said Reginald. “Next to the things you eat, my Twinkies and microwave pizzas look downright normal.”
 

Greta looked down, rubbing the basketball-sized lump under the front of her shirt. “Claus vants it,” she said in a thick Zsa Zsa Gabor accent. “I don’t even like pickles.”
 

As if in answer, a voice spoke up from under Greta’s shirt. It wasn’t a real voice, of course. Nobody could hear it other than Greta and Reginald, both of whom heard it telepathically. But still, in Reginald’s head, the voice sounded real. Specifically, it sounded like Colonel Klink from
Hogan’s Heroes
.
 

Greta’s belly said,
Reginaaald! Let’s watch some pooorn!
 

Listening, Reginald felt himself transported back in time, television-wise. Claus even had Colonel Klink’s vocal inflections right.
 

But then, before Reginald could answer re: watching porn so that a three hundred and ninety year-old vampire fetus could psychically sample it, Greta slapped her stomach in admonition.
 

“Claus!”
she shouted. “Vat goes into you goes into me, and I am tired of your gross porn!”

The voice said,
I… know… NOTHING!
 

But because Claus’s response didn’t make sense and because he didn’t understand how blood ties worked, Reginald wondered again whether he might be projecting personality onto the fetus that wasn’t actually there. Maybe Claus sounded entirely different to Greta. Maybe he fed her entirely different nostalgic catch phrases. Reginald wondered if imagining a German baby as sounding like Klink made him racist.
 

Greta turned to Reginald. “I am sorry, Reginald,” she said. “He can be so immature sometimes.”
 

Reginald, who wondered how it would feel to spend four centuries floating in amniotic fluid while nursing a rather divergent sex addiction, said nothing.

Greta walked to the side of Reginald’s bed and eased herself into a chair. Her movements were slow and deliberate, but familiar. She’d forgotten what it was like to not be pregnant. Over the years, her vampire back had strengthened, and she no longer felt pains. She no longer remembered how to walk with a non-pregnant gait. Stumbling along and sitting awkwardly in chairs and dripping blood on her stomach because she couldn’t get close to tables had become the norm.
 

“You shouldn’t just stay in here and mope,” said Greta. “You zit here and you eat and you vatch movies on your computer. But zis is no way for a vampire to live. You don’t have to hunt with the others. Ve know you aren’t a good hunter. But you can at least sit vith us. You can join us in the cathedral room and socialize. You can be part of this family. Karl vants to hear vhat you have to say. Ve all do. Especially now.”