The Vampire Always Bites Twice | Wattys 2022 Grand Prize Winner

42

Isla, What the Undead Cat Dragged In

I promised Nazira I wouldn't play with vampires. She didn't say squat about keeping my distance from reanimated house pets.

How dare you judge me. Rent to my criminal underworld leader landlady was overdue, remember? I could entertain a little side quest while I figured out my next plan of action for hunting down Lily.

I didn't normally do house calls, but I could make an exception for my old boss. Besides, this was basically me returning to the bar I had, according to the paperwork, been working at this whole time.

"It's cosmetic, Sal," I said, gesturing to the hole where Big Tony's left ear used to be with my cigarette. "Not much I can do when it's cosmetic—"

"Hey, hey, I know what you're going to say," the weathered man countered, voice thick with the tar of a thousand cigarettes. "Don't you worry, I got just the thing!"

Leaving me to freeze under a flickering streetlamp, alone with the undead corpse of his cat, Sal disappeared into the back exit of his dive bar.

The man loved his cats. To death. And back. And he considered all the feral strays lurking in the dumpster alley behind The Birthday Bar his precious angels. Fed them premium kitty kibble daily. Not that they weren't already munching on dumpster leftovers back here anyway.

Big Tony, a fat, mangy tabby, was all mush and sweetness when it came to people, but he was a Philly Street cat, and therefore an absolute brute when it came to defending his territory.

And he'd apparently gotten into another brawl recently. The big boy was beat to heck. Crumpled whiskers and missing patches of fear. Oozing cuts and scrapes. The worst of it was the MIA ear. Bitten off like Dmitri had torn off Julian's arm – I shuddered and tried to repress that image.

Okay, let's be clear on this. Normally I would totally recommend people take their pet to the damn vet in an emergency, like say when an ear up and disappears. If your pet still has a pulse, don't come see me. But Big Tony was an exception, since he'd been dead already for the last two years. Sal paid good for me to resurrect him. Big Tony was his baby. He'd balled for days after that wild boy had gotten himself killed in a cage match against a rat colony the first time. Back when I still worked at the bar.

Our deal was I resurrect Big Tony. In exchange, Sal didn't narc on me to my probation officer.

"Sorry Tony," I said, scratching the undead kitty behind his remaining ear. He purred loudly, rubbing his chubby cheeks against my knees. "But you got to learn to behave yourself in the street, buddy. You only got so many pieces left."

As Tony tickled my fingers with his whiskers, my phone buzzed in my clutch. I sighed. Didn't need to check it to know it was Greg. Again. But I did anyway. He stopped leaving voicemails after the fifth call I didn't answer and had moved on to straight texts.