Bite Me by Christopher Moore Page A

and headed out toward the Embarcadero, where, suddenly, they all stopped flying, burst into flames, and fell like a smoldering storm of dying comets into Levi’s Plaza.
    “Well, you don’t see that every day,” said the Emperor, scratching Lazarus’s ears through the bandages. The retriever was a doggy version of The Mummy, wrapped ears to tail in bandages after his last encounter with the vampire cats. The vet in the Mission wanted to keep him overnight, but the retriever had never spent a night away from the Emperor since they had found each other, and the vet had no accommodations for a large and burly monarch, let alone a feisty Boston terrier, so the three had bunked together under the carpet pad.
    Bummer chuffed, which translated from dog to: “I don’t like it.”
    As the famous frog sang, it’s not easy being green.

7

The Fog Comes on Little Cat Feet and Whatnot
    FOO
    Stephen “Foo Dog” Wong’s fully bombed Honda drift machine was full of rats. Not completely full, the passenger seat was filled by Jared Whitewolf, Abby’s backup BFF. (BBFF, really.)
    “Did you have to get all white ones?” Jared asked. He was six foot two, very thin, and paler than Death shagging a snowman. The sides of his head were shaved and in the middle he sported an unlaquered Mohawk, which hung in his eyes unless he was lying on his back or looking up. In addition to a floor-length black PVC cenobite coat, he was currently wearing Abby’s thigh-high red platform Skankenstein ® boots, which was completely within his rights, as her current BFF. What bothered Foo was not that Jared had on girl’s boots, but that he had on the boots of a girl with distinctly small feet.
    “Don’t those hurt?”
    Jared tossed his hair out of his eyes. “Well, it’s like Morrissey said, ‘Life is suffering.’”
    “I think the Buddha said that.”
    “I’m pretty sure Morrissey said it first—like, back in the eighties.”
    “No, it was the Buddha.”
    “Have you ever even seen a picture of the Buddha with shoes on?” Jared asked.
    Foo couldn’t believe he was having this argument. What’s more, he couldn’t believe he was losing this argument.
    “Well, I have some Nikes upstairs that might fit you if you need to change shoes. Let’s get the rats unloaded. I have to get to work.”
    Jared already had four plastic cages with two white rats in each stacked on his lap, so he unfolded himself out of the Honda and wobbled on the red platforms to the fire door of the loft. “Don’t try to paint them black,” Jared said, peering into the Plexiglas boxes as Foo opened the door for him. “I tried that with my first rat, Lucifer. It was tragic.”
    “Tragic?” said Foo. “I’d have never guessed. Put them on the floor in the living room. I’ll borrow the truck from work tomorrow and pick up some folding tables to put them on.”
    In addition to pursuing his degree in molecular biology, and variously rescuing Abby, formulating vampire serum,and tricking out his Honda, Foo still worked part-time at Stereo City, where he specialized in telling people that they needed a bigger TV.
    “You still have that job?” Jared said as he stumbled up the stairs. “Abby said you guys have total fuck-you money.”
    Why did she tell him? She wasn’t supposed to tell him. Did she tell him everything? Why did she have to have friends at all? She’d given Jared five thousand dollars of Jody and Tommy’s money for Hanukkah—despite the fact that neither one of them was Jewish. “Because I will not let mainstream society make me into the Christmas bitch of the zombie baby-Jebus, that’s why,” she’d said. “And because he helped me take care of the Countess and Lord Flood when they were in trouble.”
    “I need to keep my cover,” Foo said. “For tax purposes.”
    That was partially true. He did need to keep up his cover, because, like Abby, he hadn’t actually told his parents that he’d moved out. They were so used to him being at