alley.
He couldn't move.
What's going on here?
Then, it got worse.
The girl opened her mouth wide, and red filaments reached toward her from the veil. The sinuous filaments twisted and writhed as they flowed between her scarlet lips and over her jet black tongue.
Black tongue? Black tongue?!? Why didn't I notice that before?
The girl spoke without closing her mouth. The red filaments splashed against the tip of her tongue when it moved. "How delicious," she said. "I love you."
She's a vampire! Vampires are real!
"I'll blow you a kiss," she said, and then she puckered her lips and squirted a flume of blood toward Jonah's face.
The blood stopped in front of his nose and hung in midair. It curled and contorted and rotated, forming into a gleaming red shape.
A throbbing cartoon heart the size of a quarter.
Since when can vampires do this kind of crazy stuff?
The girl giggled. "Happy birthday, baby," she said. "Wait'll you see what comes next."
Jonah couldn't take his eyes off the floating cartoon heart. It changed as he watched, twisting and kneading itself into a new shape.
A skull and crossbones.
That was when Jonah finally tried to scream. He tried with all his strength to scream as loud as he could.
And when no sound emerged from his throat, he tried to scream even louder.
*****
It was as if someone had heard Jonah's silent cry. Seconds after he tried in vain to scream his head off, the sound of gunfire crackled in the alley.
Multiple impacts shook the blood-drinking girl and pitched her from her knees to the dusty floor of the alley. As she dropped, so did the veil and filaments of blood. So did the floating skull and crossbones. All of it lost shape immediately and plunged down in one big splatter on the pavement.
In the same instant, Jonah regained some of the movement in his extremities. His arms and legs still felt heavy and stiff, but at least he could finally change position.
Now, if he could just avoid getting shot.
As Jonah stepped away from the wall, a figure moved out of the shadows. The first thing Jonah saw coming toward him was the smoking barrel of a gun.
A machine gun. Pointed right at him.
Then, he heard a familiar voice. "This is what it's all about." A female voice. "Protection."
Jonah was kind of shell-shocked, but he realized who was doing the talking just before she stepped fully into view.
"Stanza." Jonah didn't rush to her side right away. For one thing, he hardly knew her. For another, as relieved as he was to see a fellow non-vampire...
How do I know she isn't a vampire, too?
"What's going on here?" said Jonah as he buckled his belt.
"Did you know I get a bonus every time I save your life?" Stanza grabbed him by the arm and yanked him around to stand behind her. "And if you die, I get nothing."
"Nothing?" said Jonah.
"Not one red cent. So stay here." With that, Stanza moved forward, keeping the machine gun pointed at the blood-spattered blonde on the alley pavement.
The blonde lifted her head and glared. "Bitch." She hissed the word through clenched teeth. "You just became my main course."
Stanza fired more rounds into the vampire's chest, flinging her back and bouncing her off the pavement. "I've got three words for you," she said, waving the machine gun. "Black ironwood points."
The vampire howled in pain and clutched at the seeping red blossom over her heart. She suddenly lunged forward, clawing with one taloned hand at Stanza...but another burst from the machine gun threw her back again.
Stanza looked at Jonah and brushed a lock of black hair behind her ear. "Ammo tipped with hardwood," she said. "Very effective. It's like stabbing them in the heart with dozens of little stakes moving thousands of feet per second."
Jonah gaped at the writhing, bloody blonde on the alley floor. "That'd kill anybody."
"But not everything that kills anybody is enough to kill someone like her ." Stanza turned and fired more rounds.
The blonde lay still for a moment, then began to