Suck It Up by Brian Meehl

Author:Brian Meehl [Meehl, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 9780375848940
Publisher: Delacorte
Published: 2008-05-13T04:00:00+00:00

24

Change of Heart

Fortunately, the maid who cleaned the Babylon’s presidential suite took so many pictures for the “Famous People Slept Here” art show she dreamed of hanging in a Melrose Avenue gallery, she never got around to closing the window in Morning’s bedroom.

The pigeon flapped through the opening, CDed back, and Morning collapsed in a chair. The dolphin transformation had been tiring, but the last CD and the long flight had totally wasted him. His body ached, his mouth felt like Death Valley, and his gut growled for nourishment.

He caught his breath, fetched two Blood Lites, plopped back in the chair, and chugged the first. Putting the can down, he noticed an acrid smell. He raised his arm, took a whiff. His face scrunched in disgust. He smelled like a chicken coop. Not a surprise. Being able to shed a creature’s skin but not its scent was a sign of exhaustion.

He showered, changed into a fresh shirt and jeans, and speed-dialed a number on his cell. He was glad to get Birnam’s voice mail. That way he wouldn’t be interrupted as he delivered the speech he’d composed in the shower. “Mr. Birnam, when you see me on The Night-Night Show tonight everything’s going to look like it’s going great. But you won’t see what happened afterward. I almost got a bunch of girls killed. It’s only a matter of time before something worse happens. I can’t do this anymore. I’ll do whatever it takes, move to the jungles of Borneo, I don’t care—I quit. If you don’t come get me at the Babylon by midnight, I’ll disappear on my own.” He didn’t want to end on a threat. He liked Mr. Birnam. He just had the wrong vampire to break the ice with mortals without breaking skin. “Please come soon.”

Morning jackknifed the phone shut and opened the second Blood Lite. Within minutes, bone-weary fatigue rocked his head back in sleep.

He awoke to the thudding whop of a helicopter rattling the window. His eyes blinked open. He sat bolt upright. Recognizing the sound of the chopper, he sagged back in the chair. It was Gabby’s big chopper, not Birnam’s.

He had hoped to avoid a goodbye scene with Penny and Portia. He thought about changing back into the pigeon and hiding on the roof until Birnam came, but the possibility of being too weak to fly and plunging into the hands of the protestors who thought he was the Antichrist made saying goodbye the lesser of two evils. He heard the door to the suite open, voices, and then a gentle knock on his door.

“Morning,” Penny called. “You in there?”

He got up and opened the door. Behind Penny, he saw Portia detach the battery from her camera. “Everyone was okay, right?”

Penny nodded. “Just shaken and bruised. It would have been a lot worse if you hadn’t done what you did.”

Portia locked the battery in her charger and it beeped. “You saved a bunch of lives.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, right.”

Portia caught his sour look. “Oh, do you regret it?”

“Not the saving part.

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