"I won"t call the police. The police and I don"t have a very good relationship. I kind of annoy them. I-"

I tapped him on the head again. "I wasn"t finished."

"Can you please stop-"

Tap. "You"re still talking."

He looked at me and opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it.

I hit him anyway.

"But I didn"t-"

"You just did." Tap.

I may have tapped him too hard, because he went from his knees onto his a.s.s.

"The thing is, Saucey, much as I"m just dying inside to trust you, it"s probably better if I don"t. Do you have ten feet of clothesline on you?"

He didn"t say anything, which I took to be a no.

"Neither do I. So my only alternative is to knock you out. Now stand up so I can hit you on the head again."

He didn"t move.

"Would you prefer me shooting you?"

Slowly, mola.s.ses slowly, he got to his knees. I might have felt sorry for the guy, but the sympathy gene skipped a generation.

I reared back and cracked him a good one on the noggin, which made a sound like a belt being snapped. He teetered over and ate the lawn.

I watched him for a full minute. No movement. But he may have been faking unconsciousness to discourage me from smacking him again. Some people are savvy like that.

"You awake?" I asked.

No answer.

"Look, I have to know for sure, so right now I"m going to stomp as hard as I can on your gonads. I"m sure you understand."

I raised a foot and watched him shift slightly.

"Aspirin..." he groaned. "Plentiful aspirin..."

I sighed. Hitting him again might kill him. Plus, my arm was getting tired.

"Get your a.s.s up. We"re switching to Plan B."

The guy took his time getting to his feet, wobbling a little in the process.

"Okay, Saucy. Use the pry bar to break into the house."

"Me?"

"You see anyone else out here?"

He blinked. Then he blinked again. "Why don"t you do the manual labor on your own felony?"

"I"ve got to hold the gun."

"No problem. You can let me hold the gun."

I faked another strike at his head, and when he flinched I stomped on his foot, heel first.

"Put down the G.o.dd.a.m.n sauce and grab the crowbar. You"re p.i.s.sing me off."

He obeyed.

"Make sure it"s in the jamb really good, then put some weight on it."

The door moaned in protest, then popped open. I shined the penlight inside, but it wasn"t strong enough to breach the dark room. I held my breath and listened. No sound came from within.

While I was preoccupied, Sauce-boy took the opportunity to swing the crowbar at me. Luckily, my catlike reflexes switched on and I ducked before he took my head off. I shoved the gun in his face and he froze.

"Sorry. Crowbar slipped."

"Drop it."

He complied.

"Into the house. Stay quiet or the last sound you"ll hear is your brain exiting through your eye sockets. It"s sort of a bang/slurp sound. Trust me, you wouldn"t like it."

"This probably isn"t new information, but you"re kind of a p.r.i.c.k."

"You caught me on a bad day. Now move it. Nice and slow."

I marched him three steps into the dark house, unable to see a d.a.m.n thing. There wasn"t a single light on, and all the curtains were drawn. I smelled incense, and something under it. Something funky.

My partner took another step, made an uumph! sound, and pitched forward.

I flashed on the penlight to see what he tripped over, and saw it was a naked dead guy with his throat ripped out.

While sauce-boy flailed around like a fish, I played the penlight around the floor, noticing something distinctly odd. The throat wound was so deep the neck vertebrae were exposed.

But there was surprisingly little blood.

The man smirked as I scrambled to my feet. Though I make it a point to give all of my fellow human beings the benefit of the doubt, I had pretty much decided that he was a complete a.s.shole.

"What"s the matter?" he asked. "Never seen a dead body before?"

Actually, I had. Several of them. Gross ones. But he didn"t need to know that, so I shook my head.

The man aimed his penlight back at the corpse"s neck. "Looks like the work of Pires." He smirked. "Sucks to be him."

My "complete a.s.shole" a.s.sessment remained unchanged. "Oh, that was clever."

"Well, somebody had to make the first "sucks" joke, and you don"t look smart enough to have thought of it yourself. The next time you see a vampire-ravaged body with a hollowed-out throat you can use it. But I want royalties."

I extricated myself from the corpse and wiped off my hands on my pants. The body belonged to a young guy with Kurt Cobain greasy blond hair. A pentagram had been carved into his bare chest.

"Are you sure your Pires did this?"

He crouched down next to the corpse, keeping the gun on me. "Looks like it. There"s not much blood left."

"Maybe it was oversized mosquitoes. Or maybe Red Cross representatives gone wild."

He glanced at me, not looking happy. "Remember that I got the gun, sofa-boy. I"m the one who gets to make the snide comments."

I sighed and took a quick peek at the still-open doorway. Maybe if I got him talking I"d have a chance to run for it.

"Is that who you were supposed to kidnap?" I asked.

"It"s not a kidnapping; it"s a rescue."

"Is that who you"re supposed to rescue against their will?"

"You"re a smart-a.s.s," the man noted. "I can relate to that. What"s your name?"

"Andrew Mayhem."

"What"s your real name?"

"Andrew Mayhem."

"Pretty stupid name."

"And you are...?"

"Harry McGlade."

I quickly tried to think up a hilarious comment (preferably something obscene) that rhymed with "McGlade," but nothing came to mind. And then I decided it wasn"t a good idea to be making fun of his name, considering that I was still the one being held at gunpoint. And then I decided I should really be more mature than that anyway, given the circ.u.mstances.

"So we"re going to call the cops, right?" I asked.

"I"m thinking no."

"Then can we at least get out of here? I"m not real comfortable hanging around a dead body."

"What part of the corpse is bothering you? Is it the ripped-out throat? I bet it"s the ripped-out throat."

"I take it that "respect for the dead" is not a phrase you use on a regular basis?"

He t.i.tled his head. "You know, if I look at the wound on an angle, it reminds me of a stripper I know."

I amended my "complete a.s.shole" a.s.sessment to include the words "from h.e.l.l."

"So this is where we part ways, slowly drift apart, and eventually fail to keep in touch altogether, right?" I asked.

"No dice, Andrew Moron. We gotta search the place. I"m looking for a girl, not a naked dead guy."

I glanced at the corpse and slapped a hand over my mouth. "Oh, G.o.d..."

"What?"

"There"s a roach crawling out of his mouth..." I dropped to all fours and dry heaved.

Harry shook his head. "I thought you Florida guys were cool with roaches. You call them palmetto bugs, right? It was probably laying eggs in his-"

I spun around and threw a punch that struck him in the stomach. He let out a loud "oooomph!" as he staggered backwards a step, tripped over the dead hand, and then landed b.u.t.t-first on the corpse. The sound was unbelievably disgusting and does not warrant a phonetic description.

"Aaahhhhh!!!" Harry cried out in a most refreshing sissy-like manner. I punched him in the face, knocking him flat on his back. His b.u.t.t remained seated on the corpse. The gun remained in his hand.

He sat up a bit and pointed the gun at me. I was pretty sure that Harry McGlade was the kind of guy who would indeed shoot an innocent person such as myself, so I dove at him before he could pull the trigger.

I landed on top of him and we struggled frantically for control of the weapon. Punches were thrown. Head-b.u.t.ts were exchanged. Obscenities were uttered. I"d been in vicious fights before, but this was the first one to take place on top of a mutilated corpse.

I grabbed the corpse"s arm and smacked Harry in the face with it. That seemed to anger him for some reason. I tried to knee him in the groin, but he moved out of the way just in time and I kneed the corpse in the groin instead. I had a flash of the poor dead guy standing in front of the pearly gates, suddenly doubling over in agony.

Harry got in an admittedly good punch to my chest. I got in a much better punch to his jaw. His eyes crossed in a most unattractive manner. I wrenched the gun out of his grip, punched him again, and then pressed the barrel against his forehead.

"You"re a d.i.c.k," he said.

"Behave," I warned him. I eased myself off the dead body, keeping the gun pointed at him.

"These were new pants."

"I weep for your loss. By the way, there wasn"t really a roach."

"I guessed that."

"I bet you didn"t."

"Look here, Malox-"

"It"s Mayhem. You don"t get to make fun of my name unless you"re holding the gun."

"Whatever. Give it back to me before you hurt yourself."

"I don"t think so."