Undead and Unemployed by MaryJanice Davidson

you, inner voice—and this time three bullets stitched my car door. Then another smacked into my shoulder.
    "Owwwww!" I complained. It felt like getting bopped with a baseball bat. It hurt for a few seconds, then my shoulder went numb. "Lucky for you guys I've got a million other T-shirts at home. What did I ever do to you?"
    The ones behind me were muttering to themselves, and the kid by the pillar—a blue-eyed blonde right out of Surfing Central Casting—looked amazed. He stared and stared, appearing to be waiting for something. What? For me to blow up? Were the bullets special?
    "Duds," the woman called from somewhere.
    Finally, he said, "Stand still, you fucking bloodsucker."
    "Are you on drugs? Do I have Giant Moron written on my forehead?"
    "No," my would-be killer admitted.
    "And will you stop with the wrecking of my car? I have to make this one last at least another year." Luckily, Fords were built tough. "Who are you jerk offs, anyway?"
    "We're the Blade Warriors," a woman called from behind me. She was pretty well hidden; I had no idea what she was wearing. I rolled my eyes, and the kid by the pillar stopped in mid-reload to stare at me again. "We kill vampires."
    I snorted. Teenagers! Well, at least they'd stopped shooting at me. "The Blade Warriors? Seriously? You guys actually thought that up and said, 'yeah, that name doesn't blow, we'll go with that one'?"
    There was an embarrassed silence.
    "And as far as killing vampires goes," I continued smugly, "you're sort of sucking at it. How much ammo have you wasted on me?"
    "You'd know about sucking," Blondie sneered.
    "Hey, I'm not the one running around in Kevlar with crossbows in the middle of the night like a geek loser. And four against one? Not
too
lame."
    "But you're a vampire!" the woman protested. She was about ten feet closer. Oh-ho. Keep the dead chick talking while the other three sneak up on me. "You kill people!"
    "No I don't. I've only killed one person in my whole life, and he was already dead. I
told
you guys you didn't know anything about me. What, because I'm a vampire I automatically deserve to be shot with arrows?"
    "Well… yes."
    "Bullshit. You're teenagers, but I'm not trying to kill
you
. Although if you keep shooting up my car," I muttered, "I might."
    Having finished my speech, I figured it was time to get gone before my luck ran out. Thank goodness,
    I was parked on the right side of the ramp. I swiftly crossed the six feet to the wall, dodging another bullet and two arrows on the way, and without another word to the Loser Warriors, vaulted over the ledge and plummeted three stories to the street below.

Chapter 12
    « ^ »
    I limped down the street, grabbed the first homeless guy I saw, apologized profusely, and hauled him behind a dumpster for a rejuvenating snack. As always, drinking blood felt physically wonderful, while emotionally I was disgusted with myself.
    After a few seconds (it never took long), I left my smiling, sleeping blood donor asleep on a pile of cardboard. It was a warm night; he'd be okay. Unless you knew he was there, you couldn't see him.
    My shoulder healed like magic before I even left the alley, and I was amazed to feel the bullet pop free of my flesh and fall into my bra.
    I fished it out and stared at it, but I don't know a bullet from a dildo, so I tucked it back in and resolved to show it to Sinclair later. Or maybe Nick Barry… a cop would know all sorts of stuff about bullets. If I dared involve him in this.
    I made it home just before dawn—thank goodness for late night taxis!—and realized when I tried to pay the fare that I'd left my purse in my car. So I zapped him with the old vamp mojo, ignoring the stab of guilt, and he drove off thrilled to his toes.
    There was, of course, the expected uproar when I walked in. Marc and Jessica were both yelling at me at once, and while Jessica punched buttons on her cell phone, Marc nagged me into stripping off my T-shirt so he could check my wound.
    "Huh," he