IDIOTIC, ROMANTIC NOTIONS OF VAMPIRES got people killed, so Du Ikare arranged an impromptu presentation.
“She’s trying very hard to be strong,” Neon whispered to Yvonne while Du Ikare fast-forwarded to the section she wanted.
“Apparently an epidemic with these folks,” Yvonne whispered back.
“Vampires,” Dr. Du Ikare said, pointing her stylus at the screen, “are their own best PR.” Onscreen an unremarkable middle-aged man pounded a cage. “Aversion to sunlight is due to a genetic change in melanin, allowing them a higher absorption of vitamin D to counter resulting anemia—but it’s cooler to gloss with quasi-religious undertones of heaven and hell, light and dark. Vampires are resilient and drink blood, but only once a month after their initial feeding, and they only prey on decidedly weaker prey—(as if synched, the vampire in the cage looked directly at the camera in disbelief, but, clearly Du Ikare was offscreen telling him pithy bits)—because, in all honesty, there’s nothing more pathetic than a vampire who gets his ass handed to him by someone he’s about to bite.”
Du Ikare lifted a thin, bent bar from among several on her lab table and passed it to Yvonne. “They’re a little stronger than previously human, owing to an increase in lean muscle mass and decrease in overall fat to allow for greater speed. I theorize that they likely began as a scavenger species accustomed to being chased off. Viral mutations further diverged them from Man.”
The vampire onscreen gave both middle fingers to the camera.
“They also tend to be emotionally aggressive assholes,” said Du Ikare. “That one had been prowling school yards.”
“Vampires. Are total. Pussies,” Neon declared.
Milo quietly entered the room.
“Not all of them,” Yvonne quietly reminded her.
~~~
Raffic, meanwhile, stepped over a pile of Du Ikare’s theories. He was emaciated. Acts of extreme violence had prompted a vampire in Sip to divulge the remaining Atlantidean names and whereabouts along with a concise rundown of scouting operations. Raffic’s mission was set.
The Buddha still couldn’t remember exactly how he’d been made a vampire. He remembered robes, hoods, teeth and crashing his boat, but couldn’t get the sequence of events properly linked, likely owing to the psychotropic drugs clinging to his veins. He did remember the hesitant bite of the redheaded vampire he now stepped over on the way out the door, because one of the other vampires had had to push the redhead forward.
A tuft of red hair was still on the makeshift club Raffic dropped to the ground.
He was covered in blood. Hunger made his veins howl but he stepped steadfastly into the noonday sun, which didn’t hurt so much anymore.
He had to bathe. Even Shig wouldn’t welcome him like this. At times Raffic seemed acutely aware of Bubba Foom reaching blindly for anyone, at others reality was so knotted that even the Mad Buddha felt lost. Vampirism enhanced the effects of all drugs, and he’d learned to sit out and ride the onset of a twist. While riding he anchored himself by extending his consciousness outward as far as he could, passing through the dreamtime, the seven-knuckled locus, the memory of mama’s curry pies, several sexual encounters and the groping miasma that was Bubba Foom.
The pissy thing about being psychic was you couldn’t just dial up whomever you wanted. One felt for groping hands and strained the fingertips for contact.
The water he splashed his face with pulled his matted hair into dripping bangs. He immersed full into the water and rubbed. He was tempted to enter Atlantis naked.
But no point engaging Shig in an awkward hug.
After a while, though, the Buddha wanted to be out of the sun.