Snow White, thought Blue.

With the seven to look after me, and me them, I could be just like Snow White. Granted, the Animals weren't exactly dwarves, Jeff Murray, the ex-high-school-basketball star was at least six five, and Drew, their resident pharmacologist, was pretty close to that height, but she wasn't exactly Snow White either. Still, they were all kind to her, considerate, and basically respectful of her, within their limits as a bunch of pot-head punani hounds. They did seem to have a decent work ethic, were loyal, didn't fight among themselves, and were relatively clean, as guys this age went.

In a few days, she'd have the rest of their money, she knew it, and they knew it, but then what? It was a ton of money, to be sure, but it wasn't fuck-you money. (Defined as having so much money that you can say "fuck you" to anyone, anywhere, anytime, and not have to worry about the consequences.) She'd have to find something to do, somewhere to go. As the possibility of her getting out of the life finally loomed large, she realized that she was going to need a new life to live, and frankly, it was scaring the hell out of her. Time isn't kind to a girl living on her looks, and she'd already extended her sell-by date by going blue, but what now? Who knew that the future she'd been hoping for would show up with such sharp teeth. So Blue asked herself the question…

Can a fallen Cheddar princess of Fond Du Lac make a life with seven perpetually adolescent party animals from the Bay Area? Maybe it could happen, but she had her misgivings about dwarf number seven: Clint.

In her experience, it took a lot of work to fuck the Jesus out of a guy, and even then, he was prone to come down with a bad case of the guilts a day or two later. Not really a problem when you were working outcall, but if you were going to high-ho a whole pack of dwarves on a semipermanent basis, one of them having a high-maintenance, holy-ghost haunting was going to be a problem.

"Whore of Babylon," Clint said as the Animals led her into the Safeway like they were presenting her at the palace.

She paused in the automatic doors, despite the fact that she felt like she was turning blue under her blue, dressed as she was in a silver lamé minidress and six-inch clear Lucite heels, none of it protecting her from the frigid wind coming off the Bay, whipping through the Marina Safeway parking lot. Thinking she'd probably spend most of her time naked, she hadn't packed for San Francisco weather.

"I've never even been to Babylon," she said. "But I'm open to new experiences." She licked her lips and stepped to where her breasts were within an inch of Clint's chest.

He turned and bolted to the office, chanting, "Get thee behind me, get thee behind me, get thee behind me," the whole way.

"However you want it, baby," said Blue. She decided she'd think of him as Freaked, the paranoid dwarf.

"Barry will show you to the break room," Lash said. He'd become the new leader of the Animals, mainly because he tended to be the most sober. "Jeff, send the limo back and lock the doors. Drew, make some coffee. Gustavo, see what the situation is on the floors. We may need you to throw stock on the shelves."

They stood there, looking at him. Stoned. Drunk. Baffled. Blue would think of Barry, the little, prematurely bald guy, as her special dwarf, Baffled. She smiled.

Clint peeked over the three-quarter wall of the office. "Hey, you guys. You should know that the Emperor was here last night. He says that Tommy Flood is a vampire."

"Huh?" Lash said.

"He's a vampire. That girl of his, she didn't leave town. She changed him."

"Get the fuck outta here," said Jeff.

Clint nodded furiously. "It's true."

"Well, fuck," said the others, in an unsynchronized chorus.

"Meeting," Lash announced. "Gentlemen, take your seats." He looked apologetically to Blue. "This shouldn't take long."

"I'll make coffee," she said.

"Uh…" Lash seemed concerned. "Blue, we're kind of on a budget from here on out."

"Coffee's free," Blue said. She turned and started heading to the back of the store. "I'll find it."

The Animals watched Blue walk away and, when she turned the corner, gathered by the registers. Clint unlocked the office door and came out. "So, we have to notify those cops, so they can help us hunt him down."

Lash looked at the Animals, who looked back. Lash raised an eyebrow. The others nodded. Lash put his arm around Clint's shoulders. "Clint, the guys and I have discussed it, and we'd all like to do something for you."

Clint ran back in the office and slammed the door. "No! We have to destroy the agents of Satan."

"Right. Of course. We'll get right on that. But first I'd like you to ask yourself something, Clint. And I'd like you to answer not as the born-again man that you are now, but from that little boy that's inside of all of us."

"Okay," Clint said, peeking over the office door.

"Clint, haven't you ever wanted to bone a Smurf?"

Jody heard Tommy come in the security door downstairs and met him on the stairs with a big hug and a backbreaking kiss.

"Wow," Tommy said.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm really good now. I was just checking on William. I think he pooped himself."

"I'm so sorry, Tommy. I shouldn't have left you on your own this soon."

"It's okay. I'm okay. Hey, you have something on your dress."

Jody was still wearing the little black dress. Some of the dust that was James O'Mally was still clinging to it near the hemline. "Oh, I must have bumped up against something."

"Let me get that for you," Tommy said, brushing at her thigh, then starting to raise the dress up past her waist.

Jody caught his hand. "Horndog!"

Chet the huge shaved cat looked up for a second, then put his head back down on William's chest and went back to sleep.

"But you left me on my own," Tommy said, trying to sound sad, but smiling too much to make it work.

"You're fine." She looked at her watch. "We only have about forty minutes till sunup. We can talk while we get ready for bed."

"I'm ready for bed now," Tommy said.

She led him up the stairs into the loft, through the great room, the bedroom, and into the bathroom. She grabbed her toothbrush off the sink and tossed Tommy his. She pasted, then chucked the tube to him.

"Do we still have to floss?" Tommy asked. "I mean, what's the point of being immortal if we have to floss?"

"Yeah," Jody said, through a mouthful of pinkish foam, "you should just go lie in the sun and get it over with, rather than suffer the torture of flossing."

"Don't be sarcastic. I didn't think we could get sick at all, but your hangover proved that to be wrong."

Jody nodded and spit. "Don't swallow any when you rinse. The water will come right back up."

"How come your foam is pink? My foam isn't pink. And I went last."

"My gums might be bleeding," Jody said.

Jody wasn't ready to tell him that she'd taken someone tonight. She would tell him, just not now. So, to change the subject, she summoned her superhuman strength and pantsed him.

"Hey!"

"When did you get skull-and-crossbones boxers?"

"I bought them tonight, when you were getting Christmas presents. I thought they would seem dangerous."

"You bet," Jody said, nodding furiously to keep from laughing. "And you'll blend in—in case you're ever caught with your pants down in the pirate locker room."

"Yeah, there's that," Tommy said, a little toothpaste foam dribbling down his chest as he looked at his boxers. "I have the whitest legs in the universe. My legs are like great white carrion worms."