sinor_sb13

It’s been just over a week since we got back from Soonercon. I actually had the report written up about it and ready to post to the live journal but the file seems to have mysteriously disappeared. Those crafty little cyber gremlins have been dogging my heels again.

Ah well, I just spent a rather frustrating hour trying to get  as second set of some paperwork I need to do taken care of  done, I got an earlier set figured out, the problems with it being due to operator error. So I decided to put the second set aside and work on it later.

Hokay, now on the matter of Soonercon. Because of work considerations instead of going over to Oklahoma City on Friday we opted to wait and drive in early Saturday morning. This meant we just had to get up at our regular time, ie: no weekend sleeping late. Everything went well and in fact we arrived a half hour earlier than we thought and had plenty of time to get a room, it took some dealing with the desk who at first said that they didn’t have any rooms clean. Then amazingly they found one.

The reason we had to be on site early in the morning is that there was a Bubbas of the Apocalypse being shot and Sue had volunteered to play the part of a Yumbie (for those who haven’t read the series that’s a zombie. If you haven’t read it then you should go buy copies of all the books and read them, right away!).

I did several panels that morning, in fact showing up a half hour early for one due to the fact that the pocket program had been laid out in a way it was difficult to know exactly when some panels started. However both panels, one dealing with world building and another with the 1632 series went very well. In fact I got an idea for another story to submit to the Grantville Gazette thanks to my friend Lou Antonelli doing an excellent Godfather imitation.

Later that afternoon I conducted the GoH interview with Dave Wolverton. He was a remarkably nice fellow  with some terrific stories to tell. Prior to the interview he and I had been chatting and we both were certain we had met before, but neither of us could recall where. This was the third year in a row that I’ve done the GoH interview for Soonercon. I have offered my services for next year, especially since the GoH is the one and only Joe Lansdale. So if they want me I am definitely available.

We waited until later and ate dinner with Rachel Caine and Cat, ka Cat and Rox Conrad. This was really the first time we’d had to just sit down and talk with them for an extended time in sometime.

The only big problem that we had during the con was not with the con, but rather with the hotel. The mattress in the room was hard as a rock. Since we didn’t discover this until later Saturday night there was nothing to do but endure it. The management was apologetic and made some adjustments in the bill.

There were as you might expect a large number of the Yard Dog contingent there.So we all did our best on pimping the various books, from what Selena said there was some decent business done by Yard Dog at the con.

You’ve been waiting for this! You know you have. What happened to Max and the Slayer after the exploding penguins took out the spa? And what about the hurricane? Find out all the answers here! And watch at the end for a special offer for Rosie Hughes fans!

_______________________

It had been so long since I’d tried the key in the lock that I had to struggle to turn it. I pushed open my apartment door, made more difficult by the pile of mail on the other side. My friend Ryk had told me he’d collect the mail and put it on the table, but apparently that didn’t last long.

The living room was cool and dark—just what I needed after what seemed like a lifetime of vampire hunting. I had to be absolutely certain that I removed the rest of Rosie Hughes’s “sales team” before the whole state of Florida was hanging upside down under bridges instead of sunning on the beach. I can’t begin to tell you how sick I am of the color pink. Pink shoes, pink hair, pink cars and the ever present pink cosmetic containers. If I saw just one more Suzy Q pink logo I was going to scream.

And I did. “Aaaahh!” Underneath the pile of past due, second notice and shut-off envelopes was another stinking PINK box, bearing the Suzy Q logo! I recoiled like it would bite me. The postmark was nearly a month ago, and was sent from some company named Slayer Productions in Los Angeles and was addressed to me care of my own address. Okay, that is just not fair. I’ve spent nearly six years cleaning up the entire east coast and one of them moved west?

I walked to the window, fully intending to toss it out into the dumpster below. I didn’t even care if it was bomb or free samples of eyeliner. They were nearly the same to me at this point. The pane went up and I held the box out with both hands, just to make certain it would drop straight down. That was when I noticed the printing on the bottom in virulent pink marker. I read it as it descended the two stories into the metal container.

If you don’t open this, Max, you’ll regret it. Mary-Beth, aka Mary-Ssss

What the hell!?

Mary-Ssss was dead. Killed when the building exploded. Or surely the hurricane got her. The whole block was devastated by that storm. We went to check back the next day, and although I looked for her—looked hard, there was no sign of the teenaged wanna-be slayer. I swore that day I would kill every vampire I met to avenge her death.

But what if she wasn’t dead?

I bolted down the stairs and around to the back of the building. The drunk guy who’d already laid his grubby hands on it dropped it abruptly and ran out into the street when I pulled the sawed-off from beneath my trench coat. Fortunately, he didn’t stick around long enough to realize the shotgun was actually a modified super soaker loaded with a combination of holy water and make-up remover. It looks more impressive than it is. But you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find vampires now that they can walk out in the sun. Yeah, I’ve gotten slapped more than once for soaking an innocent human, but it’s been more than worth it for the number of vamps who screamed as that ‘sunkissed bronze’ foundation dissolved just before the rest of them did.

I stared at the box, sorely tempted to put a couple rounds through it just to be safe. More than one vampire had heard Mary-Ssss’s name from my lips as I drove a stake into his or her heart. It could easily be a trap. And yet, minutes later I found myself cutting open the top as I plopped down in my recliner hard enough to raise a cloud of dust.

There was a DVD inside with “Play Me” written on the box. That was it. A whole lot of pink packing peanuts and a disk. Weird. Fortunately, when I decided to come back to town, I called ahead and had the power turned back on. With the apartment deemed part of the territory of The Fallen, the TV and player hadn’t wound up in some pawn shop yet.

“Welcome back to the Biography Channel special on Mary Beth. Of course, who hasn’t heard of the phenomenal vampire series The Slayer, still ranked at Number One in the Neilsen ratings for the third season in a row? Thank you so much for agreeing to our interview, Mary Beth. We know how you dislike cameras.”

The voice preceded the picture of the room’s other occupant. “Well, I don’t dislike them as much as they’re always scheduled for the daytime. Thank you for waiting until dark.” And there she was. Mary-Ssss. She looked good, even though she was dressed in pink satin. There was a confidence in her eyes that hadn’t been there when I knew her. She smiled just then and I felt my heart skip a beat. Fangs. I hadn’t saved her after all. She was a freaking vampire. My thumb hovered over the Off button, but something made me keep watching.

“Of course, after the season finale, you’ve got everybody wondering—what happened next? When Rosie Hughes died, what happened to you?”

Yeah. What did happen to you, Mary-Ssss—and how in the hell did you get a television show?

The kid, or actually, I suppose she isn’t a kid anymore, smiled again and I flinched again. The reporter was going to be toast and I was going to have to watch it. Because I couldn’t seem to turn it off.

Mary-Ssss took a deep breath. “Of course, you know that everything in the season really happened. There really was a Rosie Hughes, and her squad of undead cosmetics salesbats. I have to tell you, Sarah Michelle was amazing as Rosie. She really captured the essence of Rosie. Nobody else could have pulled off that pink leather catsuit with fur. Nobody!” Sarah Michelle? As in the Sarah Michelle (all hail!) who the kid had idolized? She was a guest star on the kid’s show. Oh, that had to have been something to watch. I found myself grinning and put the remote on the table. “But here’s what happened. As Max rode off into the sunset, I pulled myself out of the rubble. I thought about going back to the bar to tell them I was okay. But I wasn’t. Not really. Ryk—and isn’t he wonderful in the role of Max?!”

The reporter nodded and patted her chest while I stared at the screen in horror. Ryk played me? “Anyway, he and the bikers had done the best they could. I wasn’t completely a vampire, but I wasn’t human anymore either. I wouldn’t blame them at all if they flat staked me when they saw the fangs. So, I was scared and I ran.”

“You’ve really struggled with the blood thing haven’t you?”

Mary-Sss nodded and rolled her eyes. “You have no idea! After three days of cold sweats without blood, I was nearly crazy. Thankfully, the night I gave in and decided I was going to have to find a neck, the one I found was on his way to an AA meeting. He begged me not to kill him, because he’d just gotten his life back. Well, I figured a drinking problem was a drinking problem, so instead of killing him, I joined him at the meeting.”

The interviewer’s eyes widened. “I would imagine that was a little startling to the group.”

She shook her head. “Not as much as you’d think, actually. It was the only group in the little town I wound up in, so they had alcoholics and drug addicts and a few pedophiles. But they did pass around pencils for everyone to hold the first few meetings—just in case. I could hardly blame them, what with the glowing red eyes and all.” She laughed and her fangs became evident once more, but now I was more curious than worried. “I’m the world’s only blood-free vampire. It’s probably because I’m half human. Sushi and steak tartar do me just fine and there’s a terrific beet substitute out there that has all the same proteins.”

“And then you came to California, and the rest is history?”

Mary-Ssss laughed. “Hardly! No, it took me a couple of years to get my head on straight and get in touch with my inner slayer. I’m the real deal. I don’t have any stunt people on the show. I studied hard when I worked with Max—the real Max. I cleaned up the west coast while he was cleaning up the east. I heard stories about him and have worked very hard not to give away too much about him in the show. Nobody knows what he looks like or where he is. I’ve been very careful . . . because he can’t do the good work he does if the bats know he’s coming.”

Really? Way to go, Mary-Ssss!

There was a knocking on my door just then, and I hit the Pause button. A quick glance through the keyhole revealed Ryk and a couple of the guys. He looked good, too. Really good, like a week in a spa good, with some botox on the side. I opened the door and he grinned. “Saw your bike downstairs. Welcome home, Hunter! I see you got the box. Don’t worry, the kid doesn’t know where you are. I told her this was my place. She doesn’t want to know.”

I motioned to the screen. “Yeah, she just said that. What the hell though, preacher . . . you’re an actor now?”

He shrugged and stepped inside, the boys coming with him like they were attached at the hip. One passed me a beer, which I accepted gratefully and everybody took their normal place on the couch, like we’d seen each other last week, instead of the better part of a decade ago. “Yeah. I told you I had something interesting going on, when you called from West Virginia a while back, right?”

I nodded. “But acting? And what’s this show about anyway? Is it like the other vampire show, the one the kid was all hot about?”

Ryk nodded. “Yep, but a lot better. It was real, after all. We just wrapped up the third season. The first two seasons were our story. It got amazing ratings, Max. You can’t even believe what a hit it’s been. I just bowed out of the series. I want to get back to the bar and my old life. That whole Hollywood biz just isn’t my thing. I thought the story was important—and who better to make sure they got your persona right?—but that’s it. We wrapped up your story and now Mary-Beth is on to actual fiction. A whole new threat that’s nothing close to reality. But you really should finish watching this special, and you might actually get a kick out of the series. We made Line up the penguins into the latest teen catchphrase. Pretty cool, really.”

So we watched it. I laughed when I learned Mary-Ssss bought a controlling share of Suzy Q cosmetics to that “nothing like this could ever happen again.” I rolled on the floor when I saw the interview with the chauffeur that I thought I killed, but who wasn’t dead. Instead, she was the new regional sales rep for the make-up giant. And Jason, aka Jayce, the transvestite, was now Suzy’s chauffeur. “Irony at its finest. I never was paid by those witches.”

“Like that matters anymore, huh?” Ryk laughed but it wasn’t really a laughing matter. I used my last hundred bucks to get power back in the apartment and unless I rolled the guys after they were drunk and emptied their wallets, I was going to be chewing on those pink peanuts by nightfall. There probably wasn’t anything left in my cupboards that I’d want to eat after this long, and even Mickey-D’s needs the green stuff.

“It’d be nice. I’ll be honest. It’s gonna be a little tight until I can get a job.” A little being an understatement.

“Didn’t she send the check? She said she was going to.”

Check? “What check?”

Ryk grabbed the box from the floor and dumped it out. Pink peanuts scattered all over the apartment, caught in the breeze from the window. He hit the bottom of the box and a white envelope fluttered out. “There it is. That wouldn’t be like Mary-Beth at all. She really worked hard to get your name on the contracts without you actually signing them.”

“Contracts?”

Jacobi rolled his eyes. “Royalties, Hunter. Don’t you know how the TV game works? Mary-Beth gets paid with royalties. So did Ryk, so do we. And so do you. I’ve been spending mine on a string of bikes, but if you haven’t touched yours yet, it’s gotta be pretty.”

He handed me the envelope just as the interviewer was wrapping up. “Is there anything else you’d like the audience to know, Mary-Beth?”

“Just one audience member in particular, Stacey.” She stared at the camera, her eyes glowing red over flamingo pink lipstick. “Max, if you’re out there, I just want to tell you thank you. If not for you, I would have died from loss of blood next to those exploding pink flamingos. If not for you, I never would have believed how dangerous vampires could be. If not for you, I never could have gotten in touch with my inner slayer—because that slayer inside me is you. Rock on, Max Hunter. Keep fighting the good fight, and go out and buy something pretty and pink with all those zeroes.”

I opened the envelope. I’d never actually seen a check that required use of the entire ‘write out the check amount’ line because there were that many freaking words to print! All three of the guys laughed as the beer can dropped from my hand to splatter across the floor. I could buy my apartment. Hell, I could buy the whole stinking building. And a new bike, and a bar of my own. Or anything else I wanted. Holy pink vampires, catman!

Behind the check in the envelope was what made me laugh out loud, though. I laughed until I couldn’t breathe and until Ryk finally took the envelope from me. It was a notice of stock share. I owned exactly ONE share of Suzy Q cosmetics—donated on behalf of Rosie Hughes.

At least she was good for something.

________________________

Just who are the strange authors behind the Rosie Hughes saga?

C. T. Adams was born in Illinois. She spent seventeen years in the Denver metro area and now resides in Texas with a large dog and pet cats. Office work provided a living while she pursued the goal of becoming a novelist. Forming the partnership with Cathy Clamp was the catalyst that led to publication and the two have enjoyed a long and fruitful collaboration, with two series published within the Tor Paranormal Romance line: The Sazi, and the Kate Reilly/Thrall books. In addition they have authored stand-alone novels and participated in several anthologies. Working both as a team with Cathy and individually, Cie plans to be involved in writing novels for years to come. She’s now additional writing with Cathy Clamp under the pen name Cat Adams. They will have a brand new urban fantasy series, beginning with NIGHT SONGS coming out next summer under the Cat Adams name. She can be reached online at: http://www.catadams.net, or on her MySpace or Blogger blogs.

Rachel Caine is a fictional person who writes fiction. She (or her evil twin, at least) was born at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, which explains … virtually everything about her. She loves books, exotic animals, and her wonderful husband R. Cat Conrad, who puts up with those first two things. She writes a bunch, at very odd times of the day, and currently has three series of novels running simultaneously: the Morganville Vampires series, the Weather Warden series, and the Outcast Season series. Some may say this is, in fact, insane. Some may be right. For more proof, visit her website at http://www.rachelcaine.com or catch up with her on Myspace, Livejournal, Facebook, and Twitter.

Cathy Clamp is a real person who also writes fiction. After a long career in law in Colorado (which many say is what warped her brain) she and her husband decided that the reason they lived in Colorado didn’t exist anymore and moved to Texas to raise goats and live in the middle of nowhere among the trees, rocks and cactus. After discovering that the comic books in her night stand nearly gave the moving men a hernia after a fire required new carpeting, she decided that perhaps she was, after all, a comic book geek, after all (her husband had been trying to convince her of it for twenty-odd years.) She co-authors the Sazi and Thrall novels with C.T. Adams under her real name and as Cat Adams and will be branching out into solo novels soon. She’s disgustingly available online, at http://catadams.net, on LiveJournal, Blogger, MySpace, Twitter and at multiple online writing forums. Just Google her name and she’s hard to miss. They will have a brand new urban fantasy series, beginning with NIGHT SONGS, coming out next summer under the Cat Adams name.

Jackie Kessler used to run around in Wonder Woman Underoos and watch Challenge of the Super Friends. Now she writes about superheroes and watches cartoons with her kids. She lives in upstate New York with her Loving Husband, two Precious Little Tax Deductions, one curmudgeonly cat, and about 8,000 comic books. When she’s not working on stories about superheroes (or about beating the snot out of superheroes), she tends to write about demons. For more about Jackie and BLACK AND WHITE, visit her website: http://www.jackiekessler.com

Bradley H. Sinor has seen his short stories published in numerous anthologies, such as DRACULA IN LONDON, BUBBAS OF THE APOCOLYPSE, HAUNTED HOLIDAYS, ON CRUSADE, GATEWAYS, SMALL BITES, PLACES TO GO, PEOPLE TO KILL, ALL HELL BREAKING LOOSE, SPACE CADETS, HOUSTON, WE GOT BUBBAS, THE GRANTVILLE GAZETTE and RING OF FIRE 2. Three collections of his short fiction have been released by Yard Dog Press, DARK AND STORMY NIGHTS, IN THE SHADOWS, and PLAYING WITH SECRETS (which also features two stories by his wife Sue Sinor.) His newest collection of stories ECHOES FROM THE DARKNESS is from Arctic Wolf Press. He has also seen his non-fiction appear in a variety of magazines and anthologies. His latest essays can be found in STEPPING THROUGH THE STARGATE, THE CHERRYH ODESSEY, and HOUSE UNAUTHERIZED.

Sue Sinor started writing at the urging of her husband, Brad. She also is involved with community theatre, both on and off stage. Together, she and Brad are the caretakers and household staff for two cats, Pewter and Ashe. She has stories in several Yard Dog Press publications: International House of Bubbas, Flush Fiction and, in collaboration with her husband, the chapbook Playing With Secrets and a story in Houston, We Got Bubbas. They also have a story in the anthology Rotten Relations. She also has two stories in the charity anthology Small Bites.

And now: our special surprise to you!

We’re going to be making T-SHIRTS of the Rosie Hughes Project! All proceeds are going to go to a charity that even Rosie herself would support — the Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer Foundation (a very “pink” charity!)

Take a look at one of the shirts. How could you live without this?

We’ll let you know as soon as we’re ready to take orders. Stay tuned

I had to walk back to Rosie’s house after the limo blew up. It was a good thing I wasn’t wearing the pink Manolo stilettos that Rosie likes me to wear when I take her to Corporate HQ, because the heels would have broken off after the first few blocks.

I got madder and madder as I walked. I had a splitting headache and various other aches and pains, which I wouldn’t mind inflicting on someone else.

I’d apparently run over a nail or something recently, and the slow leak had caught up with us before we had gotten that far from home. I had pulled over and had my head in the trunk looking for the jack, when BOOM!

The blast knocked me back twenty feet onto a short cement wall covered with graffiti. I guess I was knocked out for awhile, because when I finally woke up, Rosie was nowhere to be found. She had stayed in the limo with the door open, complaining about being late, and the blast must have blown her a different direction than I’d been.

What made me want to strangle someone, specifically my employer, what the fact that she just left without even checking to see if I was still alive. As she had told Morgana earlier, she could always get another driver. But I’m a lot more valuable to her than just for my driving skills, and I’ve tried to convince Rosie of that fact. Also, the fact that I knew more about her financial affairs than she did didn’t hurt to make me indispensable, or so I thought, and she just left me there!

I considered letting her worry for awhile before I showed up. Maybe she’d treat me better next time.

Anyway, I stumbled in the door in the friggin’ middle of the night looking like I’d been in an explosion, Duh!, wanting to assure her that the limo was toast, but I was not. She just said, “You’re alive! What took you so long?”

I snarled, “Thanks for being so concerned for my safety.”

“Well, you’re here now. I’ll bring you up to speed. When I got back this time, Max and that incompetent little accomplice of his were vandalizing my beautiful custom-made flamingo! That made me so mad I grabbed them by their scrawny necks. I threw Max in the pool, and that somehow made my flamingos blow up. So, to punish them, I snacked on Mary-whatever. I knew Max would be, well, upset, when he saw what I did and would have to take her somewhere to keep her from becoming my thrall. And if he didn’t, well I know how much he would enjoy “staking” her. That way I would have enough time to prepare for his next assault.”

“By the way, you do know that a hurricane is coming through around noon today, don’t you?” I asked. I wasn’t mollified, yet, but given the circumstances I thought it better to move on.

“Yes, I’ve heard, I do watch the weather channel every now and then,” she replied.

“Don’t you think we should get ready for it? You know, batten down the hatches. You know, get the plywood out. We probably wouldn’t have flamingos anymore anyway after it hit even if they hadn’t been blown up.”

“No, I think we’ll relocate instead. I’ve had a few indispensable things packed. Yes, I have your laptop, too. You need to pack some things quickly. We’ll be leaving by dawn.”

“We have no vehicle, as I recall. And what about your sister? Is she coming with us?” I was slowly getting back into employee mode.

“Alas, poor Morgana is no more. The wretched Mary-whatever eliminated her after we left. I get home and Mary and Max are stuffing the birds with explosives. I’m not sure what they meant to accomplish with that. However, when they come back, we won’t be here. Oh, and we can take your little SUV. You change into something ugly, jeans and T-shirt or something, and I’ll put extra sunblock on. They’ll never recognize us. Chop, chop!”

I went up to my apartment over the limo garage. When my work hours became 24/7 I leased my condo to a friend and moved on site. It was so much easier that way. I changed my clothes like she wanted and threw a few things into a bag, including IDs and passwords to Rosie’s online accounts, in a small notebook, encrypted. By then it was getting to be early morning. I retrieved my SUV, an older model RAV4 that I’d bought from my parents for almost nothing when they bought a new car, and pulled around to pick up Rosie. The few things she had packed filled up all available space in the back, forcing her to sit up front with me.

“OK, where to?” I asked.

“New York City, I think. I have friends there who can put me up until I can get a new sales force ready. I’ll tell HQ that I’m transferring. Besides, there are a lot of places to hide in The Big Apple.”

I kicked the door of the biker bar open. It wasn’t like I could actually open it with my hands, since I had an armful of Mary-Sss,

“What the hell is going on?!” someone yelled as I pushed a couple of guys aside. Behind the bar a lanky one-eyed man was reaching, bending forward to grab for either a sawed-off twelve gauge shotgun or a Louisville slugger baseball bat, both of which were right below the cash register.

“Jacobi, I need Ryk, now!” I yelled at him.

Diablo’s Forge had once been a family bar, at least that’s the story they tell. Something strange had happened about thirty years ago, exactly what, nobody seemed to know for certain. What was known was that people had died, some of them in some nasty ways that made even the cops sick to their stomachs. It sat empty for a long time; that was before Ryk Garton had taken it over.

Ryk had been a medic in the first Gulf War and had come back a changed man; he’d also found God. Whatever had happened in the bar, he had driven it out, whether by calling on the Almighty or by the force of his own personality I didn’t know and didn’t care. If there was anybody who could prevent Mary-Sss from going vamp, it was him.

There were more than a dozen guys spread out around the bar and at the tables. More than half of them wore the club colors of The Fallen, a motorcycle club made up mostly of Gulf War vets. Two of them were shooting pool at a table in the back. I pushed one of them aside and laid Mary-Sss on the table.

The slight moan told me that she was alive.

“Hang in there, kid; I’ve brought you to someone who can help. We’re not going to let the bitch win!”

A moment later a man mountain appeared in the doorway from the bar’s store-room. He was six four of solid muscle with shoulder length dirty blonde hair and a scraggly red beard with a single spot of gray in it. A plain silver cross hung down in front of his tacky-looking western shirt.

“Dragging in strays again, Hunter? I hope that’s not blood staining my pool table.”

“It’s blood.” I reached over and moved Mary-Sss’s head to one side so Ryk could see the puncture wounds on her neck. He pushed two fingers just below the wound. I could see the rhythmic movements of his head as he counted off her pulse.

“She’s still alive, for the moment.” He looked toward the bar. “Jacobi! Lock up; we’re closed for the rest of the night. Hunter, you wouldn’t by any chance know what this girl’s blood type is?”

“Red.”

“Not funny. Figures you would be useless when it comes to important information. Okay, we’ll have to take a chance with universal donors. Whose type O?” Ryk looked over at the bikers; three of them raised their hands. “Congrats boys; you just volunteered to donate blood. Harry, go back to my office; find my med bag. Oh, somebody get my big leather Bible from the back; I’m going to need that, too!”

She had a fighting chance. If Ryk didn’t think so he would have called for another kit that he keeps in the back. One with Holy water, carved ash stakes, a mallet and a big knife sharp enough to cut through bone.

I moved away from the pool table and sat down in one of the booths. That was the last thing I knew for some time.

                                #         #         #

Water splashed onto my face, ice cold water, and that stuff stung like a son of a bitch. My right hand closed around the butt of my pistol, my left reaching for the knife I had in my boot. I stopped in mid movement when I saw Ryk sitting across the table from me.

“Wakey, wakey, sleeping beauty.”

“You really need to get some new script writers,” I said.

Ryk shoved a bottle of beer and a plastic container that proved to have what was supposed to be a roast beef sandwich. Frankly, it tasted wonderful, as long as I didn’t think too much about what ingredients were actually between those two pieces of bread.

“So, will she live?” I asked between bites.

Ryk cocked his head at me and heaved a big sigh. I could see the vague circles under his eyes. Admittedly I wasn’t looking at him that closely when I came in, but I was fairly sure they hadn’t been there when I brought Mary-Sss, or whatever the hell her name really was, through the door.

“Yeah. It was close, too close for my tastes. So who did this to her?” he asked, slowly drumming his fingers on the table.

“Suzy Q.”

“The cosmetics cult? From what I can see, they are on a par with the Moonies and Scientology.”

From what I had seen of the Pepto-Bismol pink clad zombies, it would have been a tough call. Taking a long swig of the beer, I began to fill Ryk in on the whole situation with Rosetta Stone-Red, aka Rosie Hughes aka “Call me Rosie.”

“You know, I’m not sure what about this whole Suzy Q cult is worse, the crap they produce, or the fact there is a damn vampire behind it.”

“Not all of it is run by a vampire, just the area here in southern Florida, at least as far as I know.” I looked over at the far wall just in time to see a digital Budweiser clock shift over to 5 A.M. I had apparently slept for nearly five hours.

Ryk produced a thick bar of chocolate from inside his jacket. He broke it in half and passed part of it over to me. Oh, it was good, very good. No wonder this stuff is as addictive a heroin.

“So, old buddy, I know you too well. I figure that you have already got something in mind and I doubt it means taking over the franchise for Suzy Q in this area.”

“I do hate being predictable,” I laughed.

                                 #         #         #

The traditional time to attack a vampire is at night, if you believe Hammer horror films. Personnaly, I think that’s stupid. I figured that Rosie would be on the alert after dark, so that was not when I planned to hit that stingingly pink place she called home.

“Showdown at High Noon?” said Ryk. “Sounds like you’ve been watching too many old Gary Cooper movies. But I always thought of you as more the Bruce Campbell type.”

“Hey, you can always find a use for a chain saw. I’m going to need a distraction, something nice and noisy.  So do you think that you and the rest of The Fallen would be willing to give me a hand?”

“Against a vampire? Sounds like fun. When do we go?”

 “In about six hours,” I said.

“Why then?”
         

“Obviously you haven’t been paying attention to the weather?”

Ryk cocked his head at me. “Actually, I have.” I could tell when it dawned on him.

“You crazy son-of-a-bitch. That’s brilliant.”

I got out my cell phone and brought up the internet connection, then surfed over to weather.com. As I hoped, the forecast hadn’t changed. The first hurricane of the season, Hurricane Alonso, was heading right for this part of the Florida coast and should be here in about six hours.

As my favorite German philosopher, Arte Johnson, used to say on Laugh-In, this was going to be “Very Interesting.”

end of chapter 15----Sue will be right back with Chapter 16

I pulled the limo around in a U-turn from the shoulder of the road. Rosie had insisted that I let her out so she could fly home. We hadn’t gotten so far that it would take much time to get back to Villa Rosetta, especially in bat form. That was odd just because we were on the way to a meeting at Suzy Q Corporate Headquarters. It had to be spectacularly important to make Rosie miss a meeting that she had called herself.

It was...interesting... to see Rosie change into a bat, and somewhat unsettling to see a very large bat with a pink crystal necklace dangling from its neck. She had been listening to her favorite Bach CD when she gave another of her piercing shrieks, nearly shattering the car windows, and told me to pull over, she had to get back home. I figured I’d find out why when I got back.

I arrived at the house to find that Rosie’s sister, Morgana, had come for a visit. I saw no sign of Pollyanna, but I knew I’d find out what was up later. I wondered if it had anything to do with those two I caught skulking around the yard just before we left. Looking back, I’m not sure I buy the story that guy told. I’m not even sure he’s really gay. I don’t know any gay guys who lisp. What a stereotype! He was awfully cute, though, but with my luck, he probably was gay. Well, Pollyanna should have been able to handle them. If nothing else, she’d have talked them to death. 

Apparently, Rosie and Morgana had discovered the two skulkers hiding in the yard, since they were sitting bracketed by the two sisters, but there wasn’t any sign of Pollyanna. I decided not to intrude, but then I heard the man saying, “You won’t get me this time, Rosie, and you won’t get Mary-Sss, either.”

I stuck my head in and said, “Need any help here?” Rosie said, “Of course not, Suzy. You know I am capable of handling anything that comes my way.”

The girl, Mary-Sss I guess her name was (who would name a baby girl Mary-Sss?), shouted, “You filthy blood-sucking vampire, where’s my best friend, Janey? I know she’s here.”

“Oh, Janey,” Rosie sighed. “Janey was getting to be a good salesgirl, but she blabbed about my, er, life-challenged status. That’s a no-no, so she paid for it, or at least, will pay for it. She may be salvageable, but if she’s not, well, I’ll have another snack waiting for me. I’m keeping her at an undisclosed location.”

“Noooo,” Mary-Sss cried, and struggled to get loose. But Morgana had a tight grip on her.

“You’ll be a snack, too, if you don’t settle down. Actually, I was thinking appetizer. Max, here, will be the main course. Yum.” Morgana licked her lips at the thought.

Max? Where had I heard that name before? Oh, yeah. Rosie had had a couple of run-ins with him before. I think he was the one who had thrown her off the roof of the hotel at Scarefest, when she landed almost literally at my feet. Then there was something that had happened involving this Max guy at some kind of Arthurian conference Morgana had chaired, when I had been out of town on business. All I had heard was that Rosie thought he was gorgeous, and she wanted to rip his heart out.

Right about then, Rosie asked Morgana, “Have you seen Pollyanna? I’d have thought she would have shown up by now.”

“Pollyanna and I had a misunderstanding. When I got here she was packing her suitcase – with Suzy Q products. I didn’t believe her when she tried to tell me she was ‘just getting rid of a few old things,’ so we did lunch.” Morgana smiled at the memory.

“Damn it, Morgana!” Rosie replied. “That’s what I was going to do! I found out she had altered an e-mail I sent to Corporate, telling them to absolutely NOT put garlic in the sunscreen. I found that out when Magenta Barrington dropped by and went up in a puff of smoke all over my favorite sofa. She had just gotten the shipment of the new formula, tried it, sent the orders out to all her vampire customers, and came by to tell me there was a problem. And she was my best sales rep, too. Anyway, I found out it was Pollyanna and was plotting her punishment, but you beat me to it. Poo!”

Morgana shrugged and said, “Sorry. I didn’t know. Why don’t I let you have Mary-Sss instead?”

“I’ll think about it,” Rosie pouted.

Just then, Max made his move. While the sisters had been arguing, he had, ever so slowly, been moving a hand toward his jacket pocket. I’d been watching the tennis match going on, so I’d missed it, too. He pulled out a small spray bottle of water and started spraying it in Rosie’s face. When she covered her face with her hands, he jumped away, reaching for Mary-Sss’s arm.

Morgana must have figured that if she let go of the girl to grab Max, she’d get sprayed, too, and lose the girl as well.

“Suzy, get him!” Morgana cried. Before I cold do anything Max was behind me, his arm wrapped around my throat, a rather nasty-looking stake aimed at my heart, ripping my new Vera Wang blouse in the process!

“I’m not a vampire,” I screeched.

He turned me around and said, “You’re not? I thought all of Rosie’s employees were vampires.”

“Not all,” I replied, gazing into his oddly compelling eyes.

He blinked first, noticing that the sisters were thinking faster than he was. He spun me back and returned the stake to my chest. “Give me the girl and I’ll let this one go,” he said.

Morgana said, “Go ahead. Rosie can always get another driver.”

But Rosie cried, “Wait. Maybe I can get another driver, but Suzy handles a lot more than transportation for me. I’ll let you go, for now, but I’ll keep the girl, and expect you to come back for her. However, if you harm Suzy, I’ll have the girl for three meals a day, for as long as she lasts. Now go!”

Max started walking backwards, pulling me with him. “I’ll be back; you can be sure of that. And if you harm Mary-Sss, I’ll tan both your hides, and make a tent with them.”

When he got to the door, he pushed me away and ran, yelling, “Don’t worry, Mary-Sss, I’ll be back.”

Thus endeth Part Ten. How will Max rescue Mary-Sss? Stay tuned to Part Eleven by Rachel Caine, on Wednesday.

Three  years previously:

Code File: 47-L

Encryption level: sigma four

Password: ****************************?

Personal Journal: Maximillian Alonso Hunter

Normally it isn’t that difficult to find a vampire, especially if she happens to be dressed in Pepto-Bismol pink most of the time.

You could scan the local newspapers and news websites to spot where there are some unexplained killings and disappearances locally. Or just hang out at someplace that is dark and noisy and has a lot of people gathering. Then you wait until someone shows up who acts like he is mister ultra-smooth but dresses more like Herb Tarlek from WKRP In Cincinnati  Either that or you look for the creepiest nerdy vamp-wanna-be Goth, not that he would be one, but he can usually give you a line on possible suspects.

Since my little action in Ft. Lauderdale two years ago I’ve tracked down a couple of dozen vamps, not to mention your assorted lycanthropes, ghosts, and, of course, there was that little matter of the kleptomaniac leprechaun.

You would think that tracking down Ms. Rosetta Stone-Red aka “Call me Rosie” would be easy. Of course, there was also the fact that I wasn’t all that sure she was even still in existence; hey, you can’t say “still alive;” after all, she’s a vampire, aka “undead.”  Of course, the fact that there was no body or large strange looking pile of ash seen anywhere in the vicinity suggested that.

.

In spite of the movie, the bodies don’t just “crisp out;” it takes a little while for them to disintegrate. Not to mention the fact that when I was able to investigate her hotel room, it was empty. A very helpful housekeeper told me that nothing had been left behind in that room but a large tip.

 Besides, I couldn’t devote all my time to looking for her. Even a monster-hunter had to earn a living, after all.

I was just leaving the Acme Building when I ran into a friend of mine who operates Twilight Investigations, Gordon Santee.

“Max, how the hell are you?”

“Nothing that a three week vacation in Bora Bora wouldn’t help with,” I said.

“Can’t help you there, old buddy. But how would you feel about a paying gig in Fort Lauderdale?”

“What’s the deal?”

Santee shrugged. “Running a straight security detail. It’s a conference of Arthurian scholars. They’ve got an exhibit of armor and swords that they think the local rent-a-cops and local Leo’s can’t handle. I’d do it myself but I’ve got something personal to handle in Atlanta.”

Ft. Lauderdale. The fee that he mentioned would certainly help with my agency’s bottom line, not to mention I would have the chance to take a look around for a certain pink limousine.

So two days later I was checked into the hotel and set up as the head of security for the 14^th Annual Conference on Camelot and Merlin. One thing I did as soon as I walked into the hotel was check to see if there was a Suzy Q conference there or in any of the surrounding hotels.

“No, sir,” the rather cute-looking clone behind the check-in desk told me. “I wish there was. I haven’t seen my Suzy-Q representative in just weeks. I’m running low on moisturizer, not to mention that new skin cream they have been advertising. It is just tremendous.”

I assured her that anything that Suzy-Q products did for her was just gilding the lily, which she appreciated and made a comment about all the effort it takes to look “chic”. Plus, she agreed to let me know if her rep turned up, since I told her I wanted to get some of their products as a present for my ‘sister’.

 I slipped into the back of one of the meeting rooms and caught the last few minutes of someone presenting a paper on relationships or something in Camelon, which I sort of figured was another name for Camelot. Not that I really understood half of what was being said, it was the speaker who caught my attention. She was long and lanky in a pants suit that looked more like it should be on the red carpet at a Hollywood opening, rather than at an academic conference. Just seeing her made the trip to Florida worth it.

My cell phone ringing got me some dirty looks from a couple of the people sitting close to the door. I headed out the door and ended up having to do half a dozen things at once for the next hour or so. I didn’t realize that head of security for an academic conference also included being general factotum and jack-of-all-trades.

While the big awards banquet was going on, and since there was enough surveillance on the place that I didn’t have to worry about anything less than the Hells Angels crashing the party, I grabbed a double espresso and ducked into the exhibit hall to take a break. Most of the displays were of armor and various weapons, but at one end of the room was a large case full of sixth century jewelry and ornaments. All of it was authentic and a lot of it was very expensive. .

I sat down on a bench near a couple of mannequins dressed in chain mail and leather. They hardly looked like the pictures of Lancelot and King Arthur in the story books that I had when I was six years old.

“I actually would have expected to see you with a bourbon in your hand and a cigarette hanging from the corner of your mouth,” said a woman’s voice from behind me.

“I quit smoking years ago,” I said, “and I don’t drink on the clock. Although I prefer unblended Scotch, rather than bourbon when I do drink.”

“You’re an interesting man, Mr. Hunter.”

“You’re an interesting woman yourself, Professor Morgana Le Fleur.”

She came around the mannequin and stood with enough light behind her so all I could see was a silhouette.

“You know me? I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be. I can read a program book as well as anyone.”

Morgana stepped closer and dropped onto the bench next to me. I guessed her age at mid-thirties, but that was on the basis of the information in her official bio. By the look of her she didn’t seem more than twenty five at the most. I wouldn’t have carded her if I ran a bar and she came in, but I might have thought about it.

She closed the gap between us in just a few seconds, wrapping one arm around my shoulder. I could feel the edge of her perfectly manicured nail sliding across my cheek.

“I think you have in you the same things that the men who walked the halls of Camelot did. Is there a bit of Galahad or even Lancelot in you?”

“I think that is for other people to judge,” I whispered. It was the best I could manage right then. I was rather glad that we were alone; the images that were running through my mind were not ones that you would want to share with more than one person.

At least, I thought we were alone.

“Morgana, I’m ashamed of you. Didn’t our parents teach you about sharing your toys? That’s no way to behave toward your sister!”

That voice sent a chill through me. It might have been two years since I had heard it, but I knew it very well.

Rosetta Stone-Red “Call me Rosie” was as much a well endowed knockout in a tailored pink suit as when I first laid eyes on her two years ago.

I found myself suddenly the middle part of a sandwich as Rosie was on the bench pressing up next to me. I didn’t see her move; she was that quick, and just there. I imagine that for most men being between two gorgeous women who seemed interested in running their hands all over you might be considered an ultimate fantasy. But since one of these women was very definitely a vampire, and she had called the other one her sister, I was fairly sure they both were and I had two problems.

Rosie ran the tips of her fangs along the skin of my neck, sending a tingling sensation through me, followed a moment later by a ripping pain that burned down my shoulder. I stifled a scream and tried to push her away.

“I really hate to interrupt the fun and games, but put your hands in the air.” The ditsy desk clerk who I had talked to earlier stood ten feet away from the three of us, a very large pistol in her hand. From her stance and the way the weapon didn’t move, I guessed that she knew how to use it.

“You’re one of my customers,” Rosie said. “Number eight moisturizer, blusher, mascara and spf 49 sunscreen!”

“Yep, that blusher is fantastic. Since you hadn’t come round in awhile, I just e-mailed you a new order and I’ve got my cousins ready to switch to Suzy-Q, as well. I might even want to talk to you about becoming a sales rep. But that’s later, right now don’t move or I won’t hesitate to shoot. I just want the stuff in the jewelry display case. Then I’ll leave you three to your fun, though it sounded a bit painful to me.”

Morgana and Rosie looked at each and smiled. That’s when they were on the blond, crossing the distance between them in nothing flat.

I’ve never been one to run from a fight, even if the odds are against me. But sometimes it is better to get out while the getting is good; that way you can live to fight another day. Besides, I was bleeding and I hurt, bad; there was also the chance that some of Rosie’s saliva had transferred into the wound and I had no desire to start living only at nights and subsisting on a warm liquid protein diet.

So while Morgana and Rosie were on the girl, I ran like hell. Of course, on the way out the door I managed to trip both the security alarm and the fire alarm button. So not only was the exhibit area soaked, so was the hallway outside.

Security was all over things in a matter of minutes. They didn’t find either Rosie or her sister, but they did find the girl, bloody but alive and babbling about monsters. After I explained that the blonde had been spouting all sorts of nonsense about needing to steal the jewels and use them to fight vampires and other creatures of the night, I was pretty sure that her next “chic” outfit was going to have wrap-around arms on it.

As for Rosie, well, we’ve crossed paths twice, and she has been a pain in my neck both times. If there is a next time it’ll be my turn to be a pain, but in a different portion of her rather nice-looking anatomy.


-----------------

Okay, that's all for this round folks. Sue is hard at work on the next chapter. So  check back in a day or  two, same Bat time, same Bat station ;>. 

It’s been about a week and a half since Sue and I went to see The Watchman. So now some of the hype has died down I thought I would try to get my two cents worth in on what I thought about it.

  I was torn going into it. Having seen some really good adaptations of comic books (ie; Batman Returns, The Fantastic Four, Iron Man)  I knew that it “might” be very good or it might end up being very bad ( ie: The Punisher, the Ang Lee versions of The Hulk,  X-Man III).

            The result was something in the middle.  It has been years since I read the graphic novel, in fact I deliberately have waited until after the movie came out and I had a chance to see it before picking up the book again. I did recall a number of points about it, pointing them out to Sue and answering questions she had like “Who is that?”

            The story was good, the alternative history that is the background on for The Watchmen felt very real and a ton of material was communicated in a very short time.

Yes it was violent, but the story is a violent one told in a world that is violent. Some of the actors were top of the line, bringing characters like Rorschach to a very scary level. But then some of the characters came across as too distant and almost too unemotional (yes I know that is the way Dr. Manhattan was supposed to be) , unfortunately Ozymandias  comes across as a graduate of the Clint Eastwood school of emotional acting.

            Some people called the book unfilmable, well they were wrong and the results while flawed were worth the wait. I definitely plan on seeing it again and will grab up the multi disk DVD when it comes out  (I hear there is at least an hours additional material besides the usual sort of extras.)

I pulled the bubble-gum-pink limousine up to the front door of the Pepto-Bismal-pink stucco home of my boss, Ms. Rosetta Hughes. Ms. Hughes, or Rosie as everyone except employees called her, is the primo sales rep for Suzy Q Cosmetics in Florida. Suzy Q is a fabulous line of makeup and skin care products, and is sold to customers in their homes.

I’m her driver, or chauffeuse, as I like to call myself. My name is Suzy Q. No, really. OK, my driver’s license says Suzette Quinn, but almost everyone calls me Suzy Q. Actually, Rosie calls all of her peons, er, associates, Suzy Q. That way she doesn’t have to remember their real names. The few men in her employ she just calls Q. Yes, there are men’s products, too, and some men prefer to buy them from other guys. We have quite a customer base of gay men. The straight men who use our products buy them from our more attractive ladies, of course. And they seem to buy a lot of product.

Back to the pink. The official Suzy Q. color is, obviously, pink in all its many glorious shades. Not only is the Hughes house pink, but the pool in the back yard has a pink liner and is surrounded by plaster flamingos. Now, normally, flamingos are considered to be pink, but these birds have been around so long that they’ve been sun- and salt-water faded to a pale salmon color which clashes horribly with the color of the house. Rosie keeps saying she’s going to buy new flamingos, real ones, but she hasn’t gotten around to it yet.

But I digress.

The pink limo and I were there to transport Ms. Hughes to her office for an important sales meeting. She doesn’t have to keep a tight rein on her people. She’s a vampire, and they are either vampires or in thrall to her. But she’s the boss, and she has to have meetings.

By the way, I’m not a vampire. I’m not in thrall, either. I know a lot of her sales force is one or the other, but I don’t need to be. I’ll explain.

Five years ago I was an out-of-work femgeek, living in my parents’ basement (of course) existing on cheetos, coke (the drink, dummy, not the other stuff), and sometimes my Mom’s cooking. What money I was making came from occasional contract computer work, but those jobs were few and far between. A local fan group decided to put on a horror convention, calling it ScareFest, and I agreed (OK, begged) to work security. Hey, it got me in cheaply and I was able to hang out with the game designers and the autograph whores, the actors who were peddling their picture and signature based on one or two movies they made years ago.

It sounded like fun. Since I didn’t have to work all the time I got to go to a lot of the programming. It was a nice hotel, near enough to my house so I could go sleep in my own bed.

The weirdest thing about it wasn’t the actors or the gamers, it was that there was another group booked into the same hotel that weekend – a Suzy Q Cosmetics sales conference.

So we had Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, and Freddie Kruger mingling (unwillingly on both parts) with a babbling bunch of pink clad Barbie dolls. The monsters were fine; it was the others that were scary.

Anyway, I was patrolling outside the hotel over close to the Baja Mar marina (no, it wasn’t our jurisdiction, but I needed some warm air; the hotel was FREEZING) when I heard a strange noise. I looked up just in time to see a big pink blob hurtling my way. I thought briefly about trying to catch the object before it hit the ground, but since I was pretty sure it was either a person or something else heavy, I decided to get out of the way.           

When she landed, she didn’t go splat like I’d expected, but she did lay there for a while. I looked up the way she had come and noticed a forest of palm trees that could have been in the way of her trajectory. If she’d hit any of those...well, I wouldn’t have been able to recognize her as a Suzy Q representative, pink outfit or not.

I turned to go get a real hotel security officer (this was definitely not what I volunteered for) when I felt something grab my leg. I looked down to see the (presumably) dead woman’s hand clutching the hem of my jeans.

“Shee-ite,” I screamed, and tried to pull away. But the hand wouldn’t let go, and then the other hand joined it. Now, this type of thing is pretty common in horror movies. But it wasn’t supposed to happen in real life. As I looked down at her in, well, horror, she opened her eyes, staring at me and said, “Help me.”

I said, “Yeeooow,” and pulled harder.

She repeated her previous statement. I had the feeling she was expecting me to do what she said, but it wasn’t working. By this time she had gotten to her knees while still holding on to my leg.

I repeated my previous statement.

“All right, that doesn’t seem to be working,” she said to herself. “Please help me,” she said to me.

About that time I noticed the state of her clothing. Her blouse was hanging open and there were blood stains on it, on her chest and around her mouth. This wasn’t caused by the fall, I thought.

So I asked the obvious question. “What the hell happened to you?”

“I was thrown from the roof of this building by a madman. I was just sitting there having a snack and I was viciously attacked. Now I must quickly hide or he will discover that I am not dead,” she explained.

“This sounds like something out of a Wes Craven movie. If you don’t mind my asking, why aren’t you dead?”

“Because I’m very strong. Now, please, can you help me? Do you have a driver’s license? I just was awarded my pink limo from Suzy Q Cosmetics, but I need a driver.” She had managed to get to her feet by then and had transferred her iron grasp from my leg to my arm. “Given the circumstances, I don’t think it would look right if I drove myself.”

“Yeah, I can drive. But I’ve never driven a limo before, though how hard could it be? But anyway, why would I want to help you? How do I know that you’re not the nut case?”

“Because I can pay you, a lot.  What do you do, anyway?”

“Sit in my parents’ basement and watch TV. Okay, you got me; I’m unemployed. I used to work in IT for a small company that went belly-up last year. Haven’t found another job yet. The market’s glutted,” I sighed.

“I sympathize. I lost all my savings, a fortune, in that s-o-b’s gigantic  ponzie scheme, along with a lot of other people. Then, wouldn’t you know, the rest went when the stock market went south,” she said “However, I have found an exciting new profession and have done quite well at it. Have you tried Suzy Q cosmetics?”

She droned on about makeup, but I got the idea that she was rolling in it again. So I thought, why not?

“Okay,” I said. “Where’s your limo?” I had all my stuff with me in my backpack, so I didn’t have to go back in the hotel. I didn’t even have to tell anyone I was leaving, either. I’d finished my shift for the day.

“In the hotel garage.” Since I’d agreed to work for her, she’d let go of my arm and was busy buttoning up her blouse. She couldn’t do much about the blood stains, but she did wipe off her mouth on a hanky she had in her shoulder bag. “What’s your name?”

“Suzette. Suzette Quinn,” I told her. She thought a minute before she said it.

“Suzy Q! Your name is Suzy Q. It’s perfect. When you work for me you get all your cosmetics free. We’ve got some wonderful acne cream. And moisturizer! You know, most people think that if you have oily skin you shouldn’t use moisturizer, but you really should. It replaces the oil with healthy moisture…”

And she babbled on. We arrived at her limo and she handed me the keys. I wasn’t sure if I could stand being seen in a pink car, but, after she told me what she’d pay me, I decided I didn’t care what my friends thought.

I got a cute pink uniform with a pink ball cap that says Suzy Q in rhinestones. I was finally able to get out of my folks’ basement and into a condo not far from Rosie’s palace of pink stucco and salmon flamingos. Since I work mostly at night, I have plenty of time to play in the sand at the beach.

Yeah, I know she’s a vampire; hey, everybody’s got their eccentricities. But Rosie’s always been good to me. Besides driving, I take care of her website and a few dozen other things. If something happened to me, she’d have to find at least four other people to replace me.           

Anyway, back to the present. Another sales meeting. But my spidey-sense was tingling and I had a feeling that something more than handing out new products was going to happen at the office tonight. I usually go get something to eat while these meeting are going on, but I think I’ll sit in on this one.

Five years previously:

Code File: 28-A

Encryption level: sigma four

Password:  *******

Personal Journal: Maximillian Alonso Hunter

I need to get this down before the drugs kick in, while the details are still fresh in my mind.

Okay, first thing. I hadn’t come to Florida to hunt vampires. Just the opposite, in fact. After the case in New Orleans I just wanted to get away and rest.

I’d planned to drive to Key West, but I had car trouble in Fort Lauderdale. So I got a hotel near the Bahia Mar marina for the night. What do I see just as soon as I walk into the hotel lobby but Frankenstein’s monster standing talking to two women dressed all in pink.

“We have two conventions in the hotel this weekend,” the desk clerk had told me. “One’s a Horror Film convention, called ScareFest, and the other is a Suzy Q cosmetics sales conference.”

I wasn’t really sure which was the scariest, movie monsters or sales women dressed in pink.

I decided to ignore them both, until I noticed that one of the movies they were screening was “Day of The Triffids.” When I was six years old my cousins and I had spent a fun evening at my uncle’s drive-in movie theater scaring the daylights out of each other by pretending we were giant carnivorous mobile plants. So, after having a thick steak and a couple of glasses of wine in the hotel restaurant, I slipped into the back of the room where the movie was showing.

It was two thirds of the way through the movie when I noticed the couple in the chair over in the corner. Yes, chair as in singular. Those two were conducting a scientific experiment to see if two human bodies could occupy the same physical space at the same time.

Not that there was anything wrong with it, except for the fact that they were distracting me and the few other people who were watching the movie. But there was something not right about the whole thing.

The thing was, this whole scene looked wrong. Sure, the room was dark and I couldn’t see details, but the guy was a very nerdy-looking fellow in a white shirt that was hanging open and a pair of glasses which were barely hanging on his nose. Basically, this was your standard issue nerd. I got nothing against a nerd getting lucky, but from what I could see of the girl, she was the exact opposite, gorgeous to the max, complete with, in the words of Monty Python, large tracts of land.

I was willing to admit that possibly, through some very weird alignment of the planets, the application of copious amounts of drugs and/or liquor or something even stranger, maybe nerd boy had gotten extremely lucky.

I tried to push them out of my mind and turned back to watch Howard Keel demonstrating some of the finer points of using a flame thrower. There was a long silence from behind me, and when I glanced over my shoulder the single chair was empty.

“Good,” I muttered, hoping those two had adjourned to somewhere private. After all, we were in a hotel. But something was still nagging at me.

I stood up and walked over to the now-empty chair. Lying on the floor was a woman’s shoe, a Manolo Blahnik no less, and near it was a Suzy Q name badge. I had to angle it to get enough light to read the name.

Rosetta Stone-Red.

I really wanted to see the end of this movie, but there was this voice in the back of my head that said there was something wrong. Since that nagging voice has managed to keep me alive more times than I care to count, I decided to go walkabout and see if I could find nerd boy and Ms. Rosetta.

As I strolled past a gaggle of pink-wrapped figures and into a group of over-weight guys in long brown coats, nobody said a word about the expensive shoe I was dangling from my left hand.  I guess to this bunch, something like this was normal.

I button-holed the head bell hop and offered him a steel engraving of Andrew Jackson for his personal collection if he could tell me if he had seen nerd boy and his main squeeze.

.

“Oh yeah; they were on the employees’ elevator when I got off. I’d lay odds that they were headed for the roof for some privacy, because dollars to donuts they didn’t have a room key. I was just going to tell security; it’s not that I want to disturb ‘em, but we can’t have guests bouncing around on the roof.”

I added a couple of more pictures of President Jackson to his collection and heard him quoting my favorite German philosopher on what he would say if anyone asked about those two. “I saw nothing. I heard nothing.”

In retrospect, I guess the whole thing sounds kind of dumb. But that little voice in the back of my mind that had kept me alive while dealing with some very nasty characters over the years, including more than a few who supposedly don’t exist, had escalated to a scream by now.

I really hoped that I would get up to the roof and just find some hot and heavy goings-on. I’d just quietly slip away and come back to the bar where I could drown that little voice in a bottle of Tullamore Dew.

Of course, the elevator didn’t open up right up on the roof; that would have been just too easy. Instead, I had to pick my way up a steep and narrow stairway. The roof was filled with a maze of air vent covers, signs facing the street, satellite antennas and various constructions that obstructed line of sight. I could see why people liked to adjourn up here for some privacy. The view was great; I could see the ocean and the canals that ran next to marina without a problem.

It didn’t take long to find old nerd boy and his date. He was sitting with his back to a rusty looking air vent. She was lying across him and had her face buried in his shoulder and neck area.

I stood there and watched. If it was perfectly normal, I would have a good show. If, as I was afraid, there was something very wrong with this whole situation, I had a pretty good idea that nerd boy was toast.

It was the latter.

One of the feral parrots that lived in the palm trees in this area landed near the pair and began to chatter. The girl raised up; that was enough for nerd boy to slump to one side and I knew he was dead or as good as. His face was as pale as the cover on a cheap romance novel, plus there was blood trailing across his chest. Did I mention the large piece of his neck that she had apparently ripped out?

“Excuse me, Cinderella,” I said holding up the Manolo Blahnik. “Are these yours?”

When she looked at me I could  see that she was gorgeous, not to mention well endowed; that much I could see right off.  She was also a messy eater. Blood stained her teeth, streamed down her face and all over the front of her, blouse that was hanging open, and leaving bloodstains on her skin.

“Ah, I see this hotel deserves its four star rating. I was still hungry, so they sent me a second course,” she said, her voice a long sensuous sound. I could see her fangs now; yeah, we were definitely talking vampire. Why couldn’t this have just been a bit of nerd sex? If it had been, I would have just faded back into the shadows. Max, my boy, I told myself, you do have a tendency to stumble over these things.

Normally, when I get involved in situations like this one, I come armed with a gun, a knife, holy water and occasionally even a super soaker to spread said dampness around. However, this was supposed to be a vacation. Yours truly was supposed to be resting, therefore I didn’t have any of those.

So I did the next best thing. I started backing up with the idea of getting out of there while the getting was good. When it comes to fighting creatures of the night, heroics is not always what is called for; sometimes it’s just pure de survival.

Only problem with that plan was, I backed myself right up against the side of the transformer box. No, it was locked, so there was no chance of frying my rather unexpected “dinner” companion.

Actually, the next thing that happened was not what I expected. She wrapped her arms around me and got as close  or closer than she had gotton nerd boy.

“So, what’s your name?” she purred.

“Hunter. Max Hunter.” She then proceeded to lay one hell of an enjoyable lip lock on me. Okay, the taste of blood was mixed in with the taste of her; salty, but hey, there are times when a guy just has to lay back and think of England.

“And you?” I managed to ask.

“Rosetta, Rosetta Stone-Red. You can call me Rosie.”

That was when I felt her fangs in my neck. Two sharp little stings that shot up the pain meter from pleasantly kinky to “damn but that hurts” in a matter of a couple of seconds.

I knew if I was going to do anything, it had to be quick. Problem was, she was pretty strong and had a good hold on me. So I hit her, hard, on her side. That was just enough to cause her to spurt out a mouthful of my blood, some of it got in my eyes and believe me, that stuff stings.

I managed to grab her arm, and in a move that would have made my judo sensei proud, I sent her flying over my shoulder. Apparently she had backed me up even farther than I had thought, because instead of slamming down on the roof, Ms. Rosie went flying over the small wall that was supposed to keep people from falling off.

I can’t say if I heard a scream or not. I was hurting too much to make copious notes, and given the circumstances I don’t trust my memory on all the details.  When I finally looked over the edge I didn’t see Rosie’s body. There was a large grove of palm trees, the kind with the razor sharp bark that will cut you if you look at it wrong. The trees blocked my view.

I got out of there and back to my room without anyone seeing me. A couple of calls to some local professional ‘acquaintances’ managed to get someone who came to the hotel and bandage me up without making any kind of  official report.

They never found any sign of Rosie, though thanks to an anonymous tip, someone did stumble on nerd boy a couple of days later. I suppose Rosie could have survived that fall, it wasn’t like she wasn’t already dead, so I suppose she might have walked away from it.  Either that or the feral parrots dined well on vampire tartar.

 
--------

Thus ends chapter 3.  You don't even have to go hunting on the web for Chapter 4. Just come right back here on Monday. Sue will be doing that one. After that we pass the baton to Rachel Caine and then the  highly talented Jackie  Kessler gets her turn.

Stay tuned, same Bat-Time.
Same Bat-Station.

later,


Brad

She Who Must Be Obeyed

No, I’m not talking about my darling, Sue. No, in this case that classic H. Rider Haggard phrase (10 extra geek points if you know what the name of the Haggard character who that phrase describes is.) is describing none other than Rosie Hughes. 

Rosie Hughes? Who is Rosie Hughes? She is the villainess of an on-line serial that escapes into the world starting on Monday, March 9. 2009. The perpetrators of this little project are none other than Cathy Clamp, C. T. Adams, Rachel Caine, Jackie Kessler, Sue and myself. (Yes, I’m the token male. Hey, it’s a dangerous job, but I’m ready to take it on.)

What the tale of Rosie Hughes will be is a serial story, complete with some really bad puns, some derring do, and in every episode a cliff-hanger ending. Hey, when you are fighting vampires and other things that go bump in the night, cliff-hangers are standard issue.

None of the contributors know what is going to happen. The first chapter will be in C. T. Adams’ blog. Then Cathy Clamp will post hers on Wed. March 11^th. I’ll do mine on Saturday, March 14^th right here, Sue will follow on Monday March 16^th, also right here, then the baton gets transferred to Rachel Caine on Wed. March 18^th and it ends up with Jackie Kessler on Sat., March 21^st. Will that be the last we will hear about Rosie? I have no idea, and at the moment I suspect neither do the others. That depends on the story; it may end up going back to C. t. to start a second round. Even if that is the end you never know if Rosie may come back. Just remember all those movies where Christopher Lee played Dr. Fu Manchu and how they always ended with heroes escaping but looking back to see a ghost-like image saying “The world will hear from me again.”

I’ll post the links to the different blogs shortly.

Well, this is strange.  I honestly never thought  I would  be doing a blog but as someone said you have to adapt to new situations.

So let me introduce myself, although I figure if you are reading this then more than likely you have some idea of who I am. Actually I should say that this blog is going to be a joint effort of myself and my wife Sue.

Okay, my name is Brad Sinor. I write science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery and non fiction. I'll be posting stuff about the things I write and about the stuff that friends of mine do as well, not to mention I may get on my soap box every now and then about movies, tv and other assorted stuff. I will have a new collection of my short stories called "Echoes In The Shadows" coming in about a month from Arctic Wolf Press (www.arcticwolfpublishing.com ). You can find three of my other collections ("In The Shadows", "Dark and Stormy Nights", and "Playing With Secrets") over at the Yard Dog Press site ( www.yarddogpress.com) .

Now I will turn the keyboard over to Sue and let her say "Hi" and introduce herself.

Hi! I'm Sue. I guess I'll be part of this thing, too. Brad has a lot more to talk about, though, so he'll do most of the posting. You can find the few stories I've published in International House of Bubbas, Houston, We;ve Got Bubbas and Flush Fiction from Yard Dog Press. Brad and I collaborated on the story in Houston. We also co-wrote a short story in the anthology "Rotten Relations" called Serpent's Tooth. Our third collaboration will be out later this Spring in another anthology. I write a lot slower than Brad does, so don't expect to hear much from me about new stories available for your reading pleasure.

Now, back to Brad.

I'm back!

What Sue didn't mention about herself is that , besides being a writer, she is a very talented actress and has appeared in numerous community theater productions. She's  a regular in "The Drunkard" a melodrama that has been running here in Tulsa since 1953. They keep trying to get me to audition to play the villian in that play. Me? Play a villain? That's an idea that it just so strange.

I know this journal looks a bit sparce and bare right now. Just give me time to learn how to do some things with it and we'll see what happens. Oh, stay tuned soon there are going to be some really interesting things going on in the next couple of weeks. ( Was that a hint? Yep, it was !)

Brad