I'd like to say right here that the screaming was totally unnecessary. And whatever the Chinese guy was saying at me from behind the counter was a total overreaction and how does he expect me to understand him when he's talking that fast AND in Chinese? Anyway, after I squeezed Jared's thumb into his cup, then a little into my own and gave it to Flood, everyone calmed down, even the Chinese guy after Jared paid him for two more coffees—and the meeting of the Immortal SOMA Drama Queens officially came to order.

It seemed like we waited forever, and the Countess and Flood wouldn't answer any of my questions about the way of the nosferatu. It was like they had no idea what they were doing. Like last year I took Advanced Foods class (which is like cooking for nerds) after lunch, and so I usually took a nap. Which was fine, because I'm not even thrilled about regular foods, so, you know, what do I need with like advanced digital HD wi-fi foods and whatnot—so I took the course pass-fail and slept. But then, at the end of the semester, my mom springs this trap on me, like—"Oh, Allison, I've bought ingredients and you can prepare dinner for Ronnie and me to show what you learned in your Advanced Foods class. It'll be fun."

You can pretty much bet that anytime Mom uses the phrase "it'll be fun," she is about to drive a stake in fun's heart so that it may never rise again. Which is what happened. Artichokes? Who eats something like that? I thought it was a weapon.

So anyway, after nine eternities in the diner, we went back to the loft, where the Countess said she had my Christmas present waiting. When we got to the block, the cops and EMTs were gone and it looked like the coast was clear, but when the Countess opened the security door to the loft, there, sitting on the steps, was the old vampyre, naked.

Well, the Countess and Flood jumped about eighteen feet in the air and I'm pretty sure I peed a little. Yes, I definitely peed. Jared just started an asthma attack, not the whole attack, just the first gasp. He just stopped breathing after that.

So Elijah is all, "I needed to do some laundry."

Let me say right here, if I haven't made it clear, that I have seen as many pale, naked old-man parts in the last twenty-four hours to bruise my delicate psyche for a lifetime, so don't be surprised if you someday find me wandering the moors at midnight, a crazed look in my eye, babbling about albino Tater Tots nesting in Brillo pads and being pursued by sagging man ass, because that shit can happen when you've been traumatized.

Then Flood threw himself against the door and screamed for us to run as he bravely held the door against our ancient vampyre ancestor's assaults. I was beginning to doubt Flood's ability to fulfill his duties as my Dark Lord until he stepped up and saved us—valiant vampyre hero that he is—because I was starting to think he was just a geek with a passing knowledge of poetry.

As we ran I could hear Elijah saying, "He peed on my tracksuit," as he threw himself against the door, or I guessed he did, because I didn't turn around until we were two blocks away.

The Countess was all, "I've got to go back for him." But before she even turned around, my Dark Lord came running around the corner.

And he was all, "Go, go, go!" waving at us.

And we were all, "Where? Where? Where?"

And then as the Countess threw her arms around Flood and started to squeeze the bejeezus out of him, and Jared was all, "Gasp, get a room, gasp," her watch started beeping. Then Flood's watch was beeping, too. And they were all, "Uh-oh."

So we had like ten minutes to find someplace dark to hide them, and no one had any money for a hotel, even if we had the time to check in and whatnot. So they ran toward a big construction site under the Bay Bridge. And I was thinking, I do not want to bury my masters in the construction site. What if they got paved? It would totally freak them out to get paved.

And the Countess was all, "How did you get away?"

And the vampyre Flood was all, "The dryer buzzer went off."

And she was all, "He let you live because his laundry was done?"

And Flood goes, "Lucky, huh?" Totally not out of breath, even with the running.

So when we got to the construction site, everything was either open or would be when everyone came to work. And the Countess looked up into the rafters or whatever of the bridge and goes, "There."

So there is where we went. I grabbed some tarps that were covering this generator thing by the construction site and Jared and I climbed up into the rafters with our vampyre sires and helped tuck them in just in time for them to go out.

But as it got lighter, and we saw all the homeless people around, Jared and I realized that our masters would not be safe here when all the homeless people who lived under the bridge noticed the tarps and our delicate youth or smelled my Gummi Bears and came after us. So Jared went to get the garden cart, some trash bags and duct tape, and hopefully his stepmom's minivan so we can move our masters to a safer realm.

Oh, check it, before the Countess passed into the inky sleep of the undead, I was like, "So what did you get me for Christmas?"

And she was all, "Ten thousand dollars."

And I was like, "I didn't get you guys anything."

And she was like, "That's okay. You are our most special favorite minion and it's all good."

Which is why I love her and will guard her to the death. Then she like kissed the vampyre Flood and passed out. I'm sure their love will span the ages, if Jared and I don't fuck up and fry them during transport.

OMG! I just remembered, we forgot to feed Chet!

The Cheddar Princess of Fond du Lac was toasted. It wasn't just the bursting into flames that had crispied her up more than somewhat physically, it was that Drew's blood tasted like bong water, and she was still a little mentally baked from feeding on him. She'd made the mistake of trying to get the taste out of her mouth with some orange juice and had been rewarded with five minutes of the dry heaves.

She brushed at her arms and great black flakes of burned skin came away, revealing fresh, unscarred skin below. Drew's blood was healing her, but it appeared that the process was going to take time and, like life in general, was going to be messy.

Maybe a bath.

She padded naked into the bathroom, which was done all in slabs of granite and green glass, and ran her bath. While the tub filled, she picked the last few burned tatters of her dress away from her skin and dropped them into the toilet. There was a swath of gray dust across the black tile, the remains of the original owner, and she was tracking him all over the bathroom and bedroom suite, so she stopped to sweep him into the corner with a towel. That had sort of been a surprise (in what was turning out to be a long line of surprises) when her first victim had disintegrated in her arms two nights ago, just as she was getting the hang of blood drinking.

"Oops."

He had been so nice, too. Had picked her up in his Mercedes not two minutes after she'd stumbled out of Lash's apartment building wearing nothing but a leather bustier and thigh-high platform boots. It wasn't the first time she'd been on the street with her ass hanging out—that wasn't what had thrown her. It was waking up feeling like her tits were on fire to see her body rejecting the giant silicone globes she had spent so much money having implanted. Even as she tried to push them back in with her hands, the implants pushed through her skin, opening her up like they were aliens hatching out of her. She screamed as they broke through and rolled to the floor, then lay there, quivering on the carpet. As she watched, her skin mended, her breasts tightened and lifted, the pain had turned to a tingling, but now she felt a squirming in her face—her lips specifically, and she wiped her mouth and came away with two sluglike lines of silicone that had been injected years ago. It was only then, in looking at the grotesque globs of lip filler on her hand, that Blue realized she wasn't blue at all. Her palms were baby white. Her arms, her legs—she ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. An old familiar stranger looked back at her—the Cheddar Princess of Fond du Lac. She hadn't seen this person since high school; the milky-white skin, hair almost white blond, still in the severe cut of the blue call girl, but looking somewhat like a pageboy cut now. Even the tattoos she'd had done in her early days in Vegas were gone.