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15 Head in the Clouds and Vice Versa
TOMMY
It was the words that brought Tommy back For a ith the clutter of vampire cats, and for several weeks before, while trapped inside the bronze statue, the words had left Toone feral, as had his body after he escaped For the first time since Jody had turned hie, shaved va with them he learned to use his vampire senses, had learned to be a hunter, and with them, he took blood prey for the first tis, and, yes, people
Chet was the alpha animal of the pack, To a level of where he would be a challenge to Chet’s position Ironically, it was Chet who led him back to the words, which led hied with the other animals, he felt what they felt, knehat they knew, and Chet kneords, put words to concepts and experiences the way a hu able to turn to ra, and as a writer, if he couldn’t put a word to an experience it had no value for hiot in the way They separated you from the condition
Feline Chet had not been a creature of words, as his kitty brain was not wired to file that kind of information, but as a vampire, a vaed, and concepts carried words for hi under the door to attack the Enition, for Chet had known the E" fired across Chet’s kitty mind, and in turn across the minds of all of the hunters, but for Toless to the cats, cascaded across hiswith them memories, personality, identity
He materialized out of the cloud in the dark storeroonature, huddled in a corner, holding his knife at the ready Even if the rooht, Tommy moved so quickly it would have been hard for the E The vampire scooped up the old rip that crushed the ht would rest on the lid Instinct and experience told Toh space inside to h the barrel was not air tight, the E as the lid reh roo a cat, and that would save the old man
Tommyto will the concept of danger to the rest of the hunters, putting an inize, and slowly, the va tested the roo none accessible, snaked back under the door and away to look for blood that wasn’t sealed so tight or serous
They strea, and out onto the street, where a few cats and Tommy solidified and dropped out of the cloud To that he was naked Everything he’d experienced from the time he’d been released from the bronze shell was a sensory blur in his ain But he remembered the Emperor, who had been one of the first people he’d otten him his job at the Safehere he’d met Jody
Jody Both words and instinct overwhelht of her, memories of joy and pain as pure as the hunter state of es for a way to contain her Jody Need That was the word
He’d need clothes and language to move in the world where he’d find Jody He didn’t knohy he knew that, but he knew it But first he needed to feed He loped down the sidewalk after the hunter-cloud, tuned again for prey, and for the first time in weeks, the word blood lit up in his brain
The words brought him back
THE NOTORIOUS FOO DOG
"Your car’s all fucked up," explained Cavuto
"I know," said Stephen "Foo Dog" Wong He stood aside and the two policemen walked by him into the loft "Your jackets are done"
"Your apart at the plywood fastened across the front of the loft where the s used to be
"And full of rats," added Rivera
"Dead rats," said Cavuto, shaking one of the plastic boxes with the lid taped on The rat inside rolled around like-well-like a dead rat
"They’re not dead," said Jared "It’s daytime They’re undead" Jared wore a SCULL-FUCK SYMPHONY band T-shirt, over skin-tight black girl’s jeans, with flesh-colored ACE elastic bandages running from midcalf to the midsole of his black Chuck Taylors His Mohawk had been lacquered into enta Statue of Liberty spikes
Cavuto looked at hiay community there are limits to tolerance"
"I hurt my ankles," whined Jared
Foo nodded "We’ve had a few rough days"
"I gathered," said Rivera "Where’s your creepy girlfriend?"
"She’s not creepy," said Jared "She’s coreed in her black covenant with you," said Jared, as olish accent all of a sudden?" asked Cavuto
"He does that when he wants to soundto stand in front of the ruins of the bronze statue of Jody and Tommy, but since it ice his size, he only drew attention to it
Rivera pulled a pen froes of the bronze shell and pulled it back with the red-brown clot on it "Mr Wong, what the hell happened here?"
"Nothing," said Jared, without an English accent
Foo looked fro they would see how hopelessly sive up, but they wouldn’t look away They just kept looking at him like he was in trouble He went to the futon that served as their couch, pushed a bunch of boxes of undead rats to the floor, sat down, and cradled his face in his hands
"I thought I’d found some kind of scientific bonanza, a new species, a neay for a species to reproduce-hell, ’s so out of control The fucking ic!"
Rivera and Cavuto moved to the middle of the room, and stood over Foo Rivera reached down and squeezed his shoulder "Focus, Stephen What happened here? Why is there blood all over that statue?"
"They were in there Tommy and Jody Abby and I had the the day"
"Then they never left town like you said?" asked Cavuto
"No, they had been in there all the time Abby said that it wouldn’t be bad for them, that when they were inMist form! What the hell is that? It’s not possible"
"And you felt bad so you cut them out?" said Rivera
"No, Jared let Jody out"
"Totally by accident," said Jared "She was kind of a bitch about it, too"
Foo explained about Jared releasing Jody, Abby and Jody releasing Toh the s, and Toht, naked
"So he’s out there," Foo said "They’re both out there"
"We know," said Cavuto
"You do?" Foo looked up for the first time "You knew?"
"She was seen at the Fairs of blood in a room there We’ll find her But the E with all the vampire cats He said that the one cat, Chet, isn’t really a cat anymore Explain that, science boy"
Foo nodded "I figured soht happen The rats are smarter"
"That helps," said Cavuto
"No, what I’ve found is that the vampire blood carries characteristics of the host species The further from the prime vampire, the old vampire that turned Jody, or that’s e think is the prie takes place Abby said that Chet was turned by the pri up huer, s into so new?"
"Yeah We found it with the rats The first ones I turned from Jody’s blood are smarter than the ones I turned froeneration away froent I mean, we haven’t had time to really test them, but in just the amount of time it takes theence is higher in those closer to the huer, because Jody was only one generation froorithed and fucked up everything"
"Sure," said Cavuto, "we’ll nod and act like we have so about until you tell us what the hell you’re actually talking about"
Foo got up and waved for them to follow him into the bedroom There was a plywood maze that covered the entire bed, with s every intersection A sheet of Plexiglas covered the top
"The UV LEDs are to keep the the h to hurt theood, a toy city," said Cavuto "We have tinored him "The rats ere turned from Jody’s blood learned the maze more quickly, and remembered it faster than the ones turned froot loose and le cloud After that, they all knew the maze, even if we had never put them in it"
Rivera bent down and pretended to be exa, Stephen?"
"I think that they share a consciousness when they are together in mist fored, they all knew the maze"
Rivera looked at Cavuto and raised his eyebrows "The Eht that Tommy Flood was in the same cloud as the vampire cats"
"We’re fucked," said Cavuto
Rivera looked at Foo for confired, "Well, froht"
Rivera nodded "Uh-huh, and if your girlfriend didn’t have a crush on him, would we be fucked?"
Foo flinched a little, then recovered "I think they’d be limited by the brain capacity of the species, so the vampire cats would be still be cats, but they’d be very smart Chet, on the other hand-"
"We’re fucked," said Cavuto "Say it"
"Scientifically speaking, yes," said Jared, who stood in the doorway of the bedroom
"Hoe stop theht will do it," said Foo "You have to find them while they’re dormant or they’ll just run away They’re not invulnerable to physical dae If they’re dismembered or decapitated it will kill them"
"You did experiments on that?" asked Cavuto
Foo shook his head "We had soes, but I’ that hypothesis on Abby’s description of the swordsman who showed up in the street"
"He sounds badass," said Jared "Did you find him?"
Cavuto took Jared by a hair spike, steered him into the corner, faced him there, then turned back to Foo "So, these jackets you made us, they’ll take theh I’d say they’re lethal to about twelve feet I suppose I can rig soh-capacity UV laser flashlight You could cut the like that"
"Light sabers!" said Jared, his voice going up He hopped around in excitement, then winced at the pain in his ankles "Ouch"
"That’s it," said Cavuto "You’re toothe co and you will not be permitted anywhere near the parade"
"There’s a co with you" Rivera turned back to Foo "What about so that ork on a wider basis-like a vaccine or soht for a second "Sure, what is it, Tuesday? I’, but I can work on your vampire vaccine after lunch"
Rivera s, Steve Lots of people And the only people who have a chance to stop it are in this room"
"Not you," Cavuto said to Jared