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Chapter Sixteen

Being the Chronicles of Abby Normal:

Completely Fucked Servant of the Vampyre Flood

OMFG-WOOT! I have failed, leftsidewalk of the tragedy that isthis, the froth slaves seem to move like silver-eyed zoone as bitter as snake bile (Which is like the bitterest bile you can get) If there wasn’t a totally hot guy two tables away, acting like he doesn’t notice me, I would weep - but real tearschilly in uy, for I have been chosen Suffer, bitch!

I had to leave Lord Flood to his own devices last night, but before I left, I confessedlove for hiood-bye, but no, I just barked it out It’s like he has this power over e of Oreo Double Stuff cookies (I don’t have an eating disorder, I’it back up It’s not a body-ie problem I think my system has alanted to live on a liquid diet, and until I’ e to call my Dark Lord and the Countess all day on their cells, but I kept getting voice mail Well, duh - they’re va the phone I’m such a tard so, in fact even before dawn I should be, like, et out of the house that early, but I wanted to talk to the uy and his huge cat were gone, but so werehad been moved except the statue of the turtle and the Countess

So I rolled out, headed for the new loft I rented, when I spotted two cops sitting in a POS brown car I knew they were vaht away Itoff on ay cop and a sharp-faced Hispano-cop

So I was like, "Could you guys look any more like cops?"

And they were like, "Move along, little lady"

So I was forced to point out to them that they were not the boss of me and then I proceeded to hu them until they cried What is it about the crusties? Their minds work so slowly that you have to, like, proain until they faint like the little wuss-bags that they are I never want to be crusty And I won’t be, because ht for eternity, my beauty forever preserved as it is, except I’d like a little bigger boobs

Anyway, I wandered around on Market Street and up in Union Square to give the cops enough time to slink off to lick their wounds, then I returned to the master’s street to check the new loft This ti across the street in a Honda, looking all Manga-cool, but it was obvious that he atching the loft door He didn’t look like a cop, but he was definitely watching, so I stopped and pretended to watch the sculptors ho have the space under the uys, but they do soe door open so I stepped in

They were putting dead chickens on wires and dipping the them on sticks by the wires

So I was all, "What the fuck, biker? What are you doing?"

And one of them was like, "It’s alross, you crustacious fuck You pull that thing out and I’ll pepper-spray you until you fry" (You have to be stern eenie waggers - I’ve been exposed to on the bus over seventeen times, so I know)

And he was like, "No, it’s the year of the cock in the Chinese zodiac"

Which I knew, of course

"We’re er biker, as named Frank (The other one’s naht explain the name)

So they showed ht in Chinatown, ran wires through them to pose them, then dipped the tank and attached electric clips to theh the clips and the current attracts bronzeto the ht about the statue of the Countess upstairs and got a little creeped out

So I’m all, "You ever do a person?"

And they were like, "No way, that would be wrong You’d better go now, because we’re behind and don’t you have school and stuff?"

So walking out, I saw the Asian guy checking me out and I was like, "Hey, it’s al for one?"

He looked really nervous, but he kinda grinned Then started his car and drove off, but he wants me, I can tell, so he’ll be back I hope he wants me He was so cute - in that Final Fantasy Thirty-Seven way What I’ with this one

So there was no sign of my Dark Lord or the Countess at the new place I wonder if they have crawled under the earth in some park and satisfied their perverse desires with each other a the worms and the tree roots E!

Oh well, alo back to the loft and wait for them

Addendum: The lice shaht have to shave her head I’raht ill do it for free if you verbally abuse hi More later

Sundown Jody awoke to pain and the s meat She rolled away froh the acoustical ceiling tiles to land in a couy was backing across the dish roo saints in Spanish as Jody climbed out of the sink and brushed suds off her jacket and jeans When she touched the front of her thighs she nearly leapt back through the ceiling the pain was so sharp

"Mother-fuck-that-hurts!" she said, hopping around on one foot, because that will generally help all ardless of where it’s located on the body Her boot heel clicking against the tiles sounded like a li flamenco dancer

The dishwasher turned and bolted out of the dish room into the bakery

The bakery When the alarm on her watch had threatened dawn she ran down the alley checking doors as she went, and the only one she found unlocked led into the stockroom of a bakery She needed a place to hide where she’d be undisturbed while she slept, and although she considered hiding under a couple of the fifty-pound bags of flour, she had no way of knowing if the bakers would be using theue once before (when Toue attendant rubbing his hands and other bits over her seue experience No, she had to find so into the stockroom, she could hear his voice and footfalls outside the door She looked around for so tiles suspended above She leapt onto the pallet of flour, lifted a tile to see that the ceiling was suspended a full four feet below the structural ceiling Bless old buildings She grabbed a water pipe, pulled herself through the ceiling, jackknifed her legs up and around the pipe, then used her free hand to pull the ceiling tile back in place, all in less than two seconds

She listened as the s of flour and left the rooood call

She checked her watch Less than atogether parallel to the floor They were slightly warm, which hy she could see them at all in the darkness, but each o inches around and braced to the ceiling every few feet They’d hold her

She scrambled over to the pipes, squirmed out of her leather jacket, and put it across the pipes, then lay facedown on top of it This way, even if one of her legs slipped off, it wouldn’t pull her off the pipes She was trying to wedge the toes of her boots into the gap between the pipes when she went out

The problem was that the pipes weren’t used that early in thethrough them, and Jody had been subjected to the heat all day Her jacket had protected her face and torso, but her thighs had been slow-cooked inside her jeans

She gritted her teeth and bolted through the dish room door into the back room of the bakery So now it’s deserted Of course, bakers work in theAt sundown the dishwasher would be the only guy still in the building

She found her way to the stockroom, then out into the alley She could see the entries to both of their lofts from the end of the alley, and fortunately, no one appeared to be watching frohts on in the new loft and shewith every step

She listened at the door - did what she thought of as "reaching out" If she focused she could al on the ambient noise There was someone in the loft - she could hear the heartbeat, industrial ht body dancing It was the kid, Abby Normal Where in the hell was Toone down only fivesounds upstairs didn’t change rhyth a dent in the metal door Fuck, the kid has the headphones cranked and can’t hear a thing

Jody shivered, although not because of the cold, but because the hunger was rising in her Her body telling her she needed to feed so she could heal

She’d only done it once before, and wasn’t sure she could pull it off again, but she needed to get into the loft and leave a lockable door intact She concentrated as the old va - going to er in character - not that character, anyway Noas theof e and whatnot He’d given up one home to remove his makeup and lick his wounds He’d taken a vicious ass-whuppin’ today, even if it was only to his ego But noas rolling with his homies, PJ and Fly, they would put that bronze muthafucka down - if he was still around If he didn’t run away like a little bitch

"You strapped?" Fly said, adjusting his do-rag as he drove his ten-year-old Honda Civic with rims worth more than the rest of the car

"Huh?" Monet inquired

"Do you have a weapon?" Fly said, enunciating all Royal Shakespeare Company precise

"Oh, yeah" Monet pulled the Glock out of his waistband and showed it to Fly

"Nigga, put that shit down," said PJ, as in the backseat, wearing a Phat Phar for hiun back into the waistband of his jeans He’d borrowed the Glock - rented it, really - frosta in Hunter’s Point, who needed it back in two hours or he’d charge another twenty-five bucks Before he gave Monet the gun, hecolors, so nothing Monet did could come back on hile search for gang colors, they settled on orange do-rags, since no gang seehway Safety Posse, yo," Monet had said

"Yo, Stone Tangerine Thugs, yo," suggested Fly

"Yo, yo, yo, check it out," said PJ, with enough hand gestures that any deaf person watching would have thought he had ASL Tourette’s syndro, that’s so stupid it’s not stupid," Monet said

"Is that good?" asked Fly

"Yo, dog, get in character" Fly was a bad actor They were all in the sasters to do this PJ was probably going to trip over the legs of his track pants and completely ruin their inti off the street, right up onto the sidewalk of the E "That him?"

"That’s him," Monet said There was no one around but the occasional passing car, but the new statue guy still stood there

"Remember," Fly said "Walk Don’t run up Just walk, like you got all the tiht, right," Monet said He and PJ got out of the car and quickstepped across the bricks to where the statue guy was running his gaood, didn’t even flinch

As he reached the statue guy, Monet raised the Glock and the barrel connected with the statue’s forehead "Bi-yatch!" There was a dull clank

"Whoa," PJ said "Nigga really is a statue"

Monet tapped the statue, three dull clanks "Yep"

"But he got all that money in his shoes," PJ said

"Well, take it, stupid," Monet said

"Yo, step off, Monet I’ed by a statue"

"Shut up," Monet said

PJ was grabbing handfuls of bills out of the Big Gulp cups at the statue’s feet and shoving them into his pockets "Must be a G here, G"