I'm excited about this section...Lilah plays hardball with the Munchkin, and we find out what really happened to Mr. T and Hulk Hogan.

“Doesn’t matter, babe. Not when you’re talking about the collective unconscious and tribal memory. As long as I’m conscious, I’m part of the chain. Mess with that, you get people like you and the Commandant there. Beautiful and confused.”

In one seamless, beautiful motion, she reaches into that big fancy desk that I would still love to christen with her, and pulls out a cross. At first, I laugh, humor having sustained my people through many similar encounters, but as she comes closer an uncomfortable heat fills the room, and I pull back, but not before she hits me in the hand with it, burning the spot between my fingers and my thumb. I try to shrug it off. “Didn’t hurt a bit,” I lie.

“Do you want something that will hurt?” Remember this, babe, context is everything.

“ Besides you?” I swear, though it felt like my unlife depended on it, I couldn’t stop myself. Such a perfect straight line she gave me.

“Drop dead...more dead,” She says, and sighs, sounding weirdly like Giardello in his “Power weighs heavily” mood. “Mess with me again and I’m on the phone to Brooklyn before you can finish saying ‘golem’. Got it? Babe.”

“You make a fairly persuasive argument.” I say. “How am I gonna walk the streets with this beast?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she says, letting her cultivated exterior slip just a bit, like I knew she could, “This is L.A. You’re a producer or something. Or maybe a comic.”

“Everybody thinks I look like this one asshole stand-up always bragging about his house in France. Yeah, babe, all dissidents brag about their possessions.”

“Lindsey handled that case...he was disappointed when the defendants ended up in that Hell Dimension.”

“Hell dimension?”

”Well, you’ve not seen them around, have you?”

"Just on commercials."

"Hell Dimension. The Senior Partners hate to lose."

But definitely a BWAH! moment, if you know your Hendrix history...

Oh, yes. And I think Hendrix WOULD outweird Dru, in a heartbeat.

I can't pull myself away from working long enough to write right now, but does anyone else have an overpowering urge to write Dru at a Dead concert?

"Just on commercials."

"Hell Dimension. The Senior Partners hate to lose."

oh. my. lord. That's amazing.

Deb, so funny. I love that.

I wish I could write a rock drabble, but I've never been to a concert.

Deena, I suppose that's funnier if you know that Belzer sued those guys for a television stunt gone horribly wrong, during which he was knocked unconscious. But he got a funny story out of it...and the house in France(which, in real life, I don't blame him for talking about...I just thought it'd be funny if that pissed off the Munchkin. If I could come from nothing, or hell, what I have now, to that, I'd tell everybody, too.)Thanks though.

I thought it was hilarious without the backstory, but that is funny.

He's going to have people annoying him by trying to find the wires, or the controls, or pet the thing, isn't he?

Would you be surprised? Am halfway tempted to put in a shoutout to "We're police. Go rob somebody else." But maybe not...this is month 3 already for this puppy...maybe I should concentrate on wrapping it up.

Well, maybe, but, why? what are the pros and cons of wrapping it up? Writing another one? I mean, I know you want to write other things that are not fic, but you could let it percolate along too, or finish it and start another one, or... basically, I'm saying, I don't have a gun to your head telling you to finish it. I'm enjoying the journey.

I don't have a gun to your head....

So, I'm not Gordon Pratt...or if I am, don't forget which Greek place closes early on Friday...(That thing with the ancient Greek and Frank? So. Sexy.)I know that...my inner Puritan is appalled and mumbling some Puritanical version of "Three months. Three months that you're going to be begging for as you lie dying...and you just had to go for vampire cunnilingus...is that what you went to college for?" To which I'd say "No. I went to college to get laid by smart people. Oh, and read great books, and have a future. One out of three ain't bad." SB is gonna be on The Sopranos, and I swear I couldn't remember his name...I was like "Gordon Pratt's gonna be Tony's cousin."
And my mom was like "What?"

And so I try again.."You know, whatsits, Munch killed him. Good actor, sort of disgusting."
She got it right away.

MUNCH

So that’s how I happen to be schlepping a hellhound through the City of Angels. “Let’s go catch a red herring,” I tell it.

You know that urban legend about people in L.A. living in their cars? Complete bullshit, at least that night. Tons of people are swarming the sidewalks, all wanting a chance to pet or fondle Cujo. One is a young blonde gorgeous enough to make me pause in my labors. “Excuse me?”
the young thing says. “Are you somebody?”

“I like to think so, yes. Of course, this whole planet could be a mote of dust in the Creator’s eye, if you believe in a Creator, that is. Which I really don’t.”

She waves aside my dilemma like last year’s nail polish. “No, I mean, are you on television? Cause you look familiar.”

“No, darling. Using that inclusive rubric, I can assure you I’m nobody at all. You might not actually be having this conversation at all, in fact.”

“You don’t have to get so bent about it. How’d you make that dog? Is he animatronic?”

“Just a figment of the shared illusion we call reality, sweetie.”

”Oh, I thought maybe fiber optics.” Suddenly I feel depressed and want to go back to Balmer where I get rejected for who I am instead of who I’m not.

I’m not Angelus, not some kind of vamp Joe Pesci character, not a movie star, not even Wesley Fucking Wyndam Price.Staking is too good for me. Really. And the sun fucking shines here three hundred days of the year...only a schlemiel like me starts his unlife like that. Right? Right. I’m not even a real vampire...just a schmuck with fangs.

Just then, a carful of braindeads, pulls up alongside me and Cujo. “Excuse me,” the driver says, all bogus formal, “we’re looking to get back on the 405. “

No, I think, asking for directions is not an old trick at all. Older than the Princess, probably. Except then, it probably started with “Prithee, good sir,” or something. What the hell kind of word is that anyway? I should nip this in the bud.
“I’m a vampire. Go rob somebody else.”

“Man, the old guy says he’s a vampire. We weren’t going to rob anybody.”

“Right. Well, make sure.” My face changes and they squeal like the road company for Deliverance. California doesn’t even make a decent yo...some of the cornerboys at home would look into my yellow eyes without flinching. I catch the smallest one and drain him, even as my angst demands a poetic lack of appetite. The demon doesn’t allow me to do that. I think it is still mad at me for not turning You Know Who. She’d have made a fantastic vampire...she’s already good at catching what she hunts for.

It occurred to me that there was one I missed:

It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll—An Epilog

New York City, 1978—The line for tickets was stretching around the block, and disdain etched across Spike’s face as he and Drusilla walked the line for stragglers. “I write the songs that make the whole world sing?” he spat through clenched teeth. “More like make the whole world gag. What kind of bloody ponce listens to that sort of garbage?”

Hidden upwind and just out of sight in an alleyway, Angel desperately clenched his ticket.