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  Praise for Bite Somebody

  “Bite Somebody is the Pretty in Pink of vampire stories; fun, self-consciously retro, and not afraid to be goofy. I’ll never get the phrase ‘Woodsy BO’ out of my head. Sara Dobie Bauer knows how to keep a reader smiling.”

  —Christopher Buehlman, author of Those Across the River

  “Witty banter and hot sexy-times make Bite Somebody sparkle in all the right ways.”

  —Beth Cato, author of The Clockwork Dagger series

  “Bite Somebody is nothing short of vamptacular! Often side-splittingly hilarious, at times poignant and overwhelmingly relatable, Sara Dobie Bauer takes us on a journey of self-discovery, friendship, and first love—with a dash of A-positive, surfer dude charm, fangs that go ‘boing,’ and a purple-haired sidekick who’s unapologetically stuck in the 80s. Bite Somebody is a fresh, witty, rum-soaked take on the modern vampire story that you’ll want to shamelessly sink your teeth into. Go ahead. Take a bite.”

  —Tiffany Michelle Brown, author of Spin and Give it Back

  “Bite Somebody is sexy, funny, and A-positively alive with colorful characters. Celia is perfectly imperfect and insecure; adorable sexy human, Ian, sparkles more than any undead ever could; and Imogene is the kind of bad-influence friend we all need in our lives. Bursting with tasty giggles, devilish guffaws, and swoony sighs, Bite Somebody is an absolute pleasure to sink your teeth into.”

  —Jennifer Scott, author of The Accidental Book Club

  Bite Somebody

  “Do you want to be perfect?”

  That’s what Danny asked Celia the night he turned her into a vampire. Three months have passed since, and immortality didn’t transform her into the glamorous, sexy vamp she was expecting, but left her awkward, lonely, and working at a Florida gas station. On top of that, she’s a giant screw-up of an immortal, because the only blood she consumes is from illegally obtained hospital blood bags.

  What she needs to do—according to her moody vampire friend Imogene—is just…bite somebody. But Celia wants her first bite to be special, and she has yet to meet Mr. Right Bite. Then, Ian moves in next door. His scent creeps through her kitchen wall and makes her nose tingle, but insecure Celia can’t bring herself to meet the guy face-to-face.

  When she finally gets a look at Ian’s cyclist physique, curly black hair, and sun-kissed skin, other parts of Celia tingle, as well. Could he be the first bite she’s been waiting for to complete her vampire transformation? His kisses certainly have a way of making her fangs throb.

  Just when Celia starts to believe Ian may be the fairy tale ending she always wanted, her jerk of a creator returns to town, which spells nothing but trouble for everyone involved.

  Bite Somebody

  Sara Dobie Bauer

  World Weaver Press

  Copyright Notice

  No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of World Weaver Press.

  BITE SOMEBODY

  Copyright © 2016 Sara Dobie Bauer.

  Published by World Weaver Press

  Albuquerque, NM

  www.WorldWeaverPress.com

  Editor: Trysh Thompson

  Cover layout and design by Amanda C. Davis. Cover images used under license from Shutterstock.com.

  First edition: June 2016

  Also available in paperback - ISBN-13: 978-0692661833

  ASIN (mobi): B01DL9M2UC

  B&N ISBN (ePub): 2940153238623

  Kobo ISBN (ePub): 1230001012644

  This is a work of fiction; characters and events are either fictitious or used fictitiously.

  Piracy isn’t a victimless crime. Please respect the author and the hard work she’s put into writing and editing this novel: Do not copy. Do not distribute. Do not post or share online. If you want to share this book with a friend, please consider buying an additional copy.

  For Sam, who’s still looking for her surfer boy.

  “Immortality is just living longer with more embarrassment.” — Dracula (paraphrased)

  BITE SOMEBODY

  Chapter One

  Celia Merkin rode her powder blue beach cruiser down the humid length of Admiral Key, past darkened palm trees swinging in the nighttime breeze—and one hissing goose. She arrived to work at the gas station just as her boss, Omar, was leaving. He looked like he should have been a bouncer—the size of the Incredible Hulk, but less green.

  “Where’s your apron?” he said.

  She held up her orange “Happy Gas” apron, sucking air from her hurried ride.

  “Why aren’t you wearing it?”

  “I just got here.”

  He rubbed his bald head, maybe for good luck. “You ride your bike here, Celia, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, wear your apron the whole way here. That way, people see ‘Happy Gas’ and think they should come here, too. Capisce?”

  Omar was not Italian. Celia had no idea why he said things like “capisce.” She nodded, thinking, Why not? Not like wearing an ugly orange apron is going to ruin my image. Not like she had an image at all.

  “Enjoy your night,” Omar said. “Gun’s under the counter.” He winked.

  The bell above the door clacked when he left. The bell had been broken for months. It was now just an empty piece of metal that clacked when customers arrived: clack, clack, clonk.

  Ralph was behind the counter, closing out his drawer. He was seventeen and read surfer magazines. “Hey, Red,” he said in reference to her mess of hair.

  “Please don’t call me Red. You know I don’t like it.”

  “Okay, Ceeeeeeelia.” He put extra emphasis on her name and shook his tan hands in the air like flapping seagulls.

  Celia had been with Happy Gas for three years, ever since she dropped out of college and sold her parents’ house in the nearby city of Lazaret. She only recently switched to the night shift. She didn’t have to talk to half as many people that way. Her therapist suggested she should meet more people, make some connections. However, the more interactions she had with others, the less she liked people.

  “Tonight is gonna be tight,” Ralph said, slamming the drawer shut on the cash register.

  Celia put her apron over her head and loosely tied the strings.

  “Don’t you wanna know why?”

  She sighed.

  “There’s gonna be this sick party at a club in Lazaret. Totally sick.”

  “You can’t go to clubs,” Celia said. “You’re seventeen.”

  “Duh, Celia, I have a fake ID. Everyone cool has a fake ID.”

  Celia did not think Ralph was cool. Freddie Mercury was cool. Ralph was…a tool.

  She wasn’t surprised about the fake, though. Her gas station co-worker was all about illegal activities. Since she worked the night shift, he once asked how she slept through the day, what with the sun and all. She told him she put tin foil on her bedroom window, but Ralph told her that was a bad idea. “Cops look for tin foil in windows as a sign of hydroponic pot growing.”

  Ever since he told her that, Celia had been paranoid and looking for a tin foil replacement. She didn’t really believe Ralph, but she also didn’t want to take a chance. Although she was not growing weed, she didn’t know how she would explain a fridge filled with bags of blood.

  Celia Merkin was a vampire, and it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. In movies, vampires were all super good-looking and confident and mysterious. Celia had seen Interview with a Vampire. She had seen all the vampire movies ever made, and every bloodsucker was always hot and suave. She
expected to wake up one morning looking like Kate Beckinsale. Instead, she woke up with bed head and dry drool on the outside of her mouth wondering what the hell went wrong.

  Ralph slapped a tan hand on her shoulder. “Do you ever hit the clubs, Celia?”

  She shivered him off her shoulder. Annoying little boy. “No.”

  She wanted to tell him, Yeah, I went to a club once and got turned into a vampire. She even considered going all Bela Lugosi, “I vant to suck your blood huh huh huh.” Celia had several such fantasies every day that she never went through with. Her therapist told her she was “repressed.”

  Ralph just shrugged. “Yeah. I guess cool guys don’t usually go for girls like you.”

  Some of her red hair escaped her ponytail. She shoved it behind her ears and started paying attention to the cash register.

  “Do you have a boyfriend, Ceee-leee-uh?” Ralph leaned close to her again. He smelled like Cheetos.

  Celia didn’t have a boyfriend, but he had walked by her apartment that day—the guy who made her nose tingle. She didn’t know what he looked like, but he smelled like men’s deodorant half worn off—sweaty, athletic male.

  Woodsy BO.

  Celia didn’t cop to having a crush on the smell of her neighbor. Instead, she ignored stupid Ralph and pushed a button on the register that made the drawer open. She opened the drawer; she closed the drawer. She just wanted Ralph to leave so she could start reading her newest piece of research—a series about vampires called Twilight.

  Since her change, she’d been doing all sorts of vampire “research.” She’d gotten through Interview with a Vampire, book and film versions, which basically made her suicidal. In Anne Rice’s opinion, vampires obviously were all super hot and wanted to bang each other, regardless of sexual orientation—just bang, bang, bang. Plus, they were all classy and confident. They were basically exactly what Celia expected to become when Danny’s teeth popped through her skin, but her expectations were far from reality.

  Ralph smacked her on the shoulder. “Of course you don’t have a boyfriend!” He laughed like she’d done something hilarious, and Celia knew she wasn’t funny unless it was accidental. He held onto his stomach and laughed and laughed. Maybe she should talk to her therapist about why a seventeen-year-old high school kid made her feel like the hunchback of Notre Dame.

  He finally left.

  She had a couple customers—mostly guys buying beer after day shift, other guys buying coffee for the night. There were some pretty girls, beachy girls, who bought cigarettes and bubble gum. Some tourists bought Tums.

  Finally, about eleven, Celia got to settle in with her new book.

  She sighed and started into Twilight.

  She was just to the part where Bella first sees Edward when the empty bell clank-clanked, and she looked up to see a girl in the doorway. She was actually a woman, probably Celia’s age, although at twenty-three, she still had trouble calling herself an adult.

  The woman had wild, curly, purple hair, outlined by the lights above the gas pumps outside. Half her hair was pulled up in a purple plastic clip on the side of her head. She wore sunglasses—retro ones with red plastic rims—and a tight black t-shirt, tight jeans, and big combat boots. She carried a cassette player on her hip, attached to white earbuds that hung around her neck.

  The woman let go of the door like it disgusted her and clomped right past Celia at the register. She stomped up and down the aisles, not looking at anything. Finally, she ended up at the beer cooler, which she passed up in exchange for juice—peach juice.

  As she walked to the counter, Celia buried her nose in her book and pretended she hadn’t been staring.

  The strange creature pounded her peach juice against the counter. “Got any rum?”

  “No, sorry, we don’t sell hard liquor here,” Celia said.

  “Bummer.” She reached into the pocket of her tight jeans and pulled out a black leather wallet.

  “Three-fifty, please.”

  Purple-head planted a five between them, and as Celia toyed with the register, she felt like she was being watched. When she looked up to give the woman her change, her sunglasses were tilted down. Dark blue eyes bored into Celia. She was reminded of Dr. Savage, her therapist, the way she always looked over her glasses before making some deep, spiritual assessment.

  “You’re new,” the stranger said.

  “I’ve worked here for three years.”

  The stranger coughed out a chuckle. “No. New.” She smiled at Celia, only not really a smile. She flashed a gleaming set of white fangs at her.

  “Oh! Yeah!” Celia shouted.

  Holy shit! This was the first vampire she’d met since her turn three months before, outside of her blood dealer and her therapist. She wanted to hug the woman across the counter, but fearing possible death by humiliation, she hugged herself instead.

  “How did you know?” Celia asked.

  “You smell funny.” She sniffed like she was making a point. “You haven’t even had your first bite yet.”

  “N-no.”

  The woman stared at Celia some more. Based on the little twitch on the outside of her mouth, she was either amused or appalled. Celia could never tell the difference. Then, her new vampire friend (ish) took her change and shoved her wallet back into her tight jeans. “Okay, then. Good luck.” She made a weird little noise like Butthead, only quieter, and turned for the door.

  Celia was blowing it! Blowing it! “Wait!” She rounded the counter and stopped with her hand on the exit. “Could we hang out sometime?”

  “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  “No.” Celia scratched her scalp. “See, I don’t know anyone in the, in the…anyone else like me. Well, I mean, I guess I know two vampires, but I don’t really like them. So I’d like to meet more vampire people. Maybe you could—I could hang out with you sometime?”

  “Newbie, you gotta pull your shit together. You sound like Rain Man.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re not my kind of people.” The purple-headed vamp chick pushed the door open, past Celia. The air smelled like salt, fish, and gasoline.

  “If you could just show me around a little or introduce me to some other vampires?” Celia followed her out into the night. “My therapist says I need to meet people, or, I mean, vampires, and make connections to help with my integration into my new lifestyle. I journal a little bit, too, but you know…”

  “Why are you following me?” She headed out toward the street. Her boot clomps resounded like a car backfire through the quiet night.

  “Because I need—I need help.” Ten points for honesty.

  The vamp in sunglasses turned to face Celia. She hid behind her shades. “I’m not helpful.” She reached for one of the white earbuds on her shoulder and shoved it in her ear the way Celia imagined someone might shove an icepick in the head of their arch enemy.

  “You could just let me go out with you some time. Once.”

  “I’m not into chicks.”

  “No, no!” Celia waved her hands in the air. “Not like that. A place where vampires go. You could take me, and maybe I could, you know, meet other vampires?” Celia paused. “You look like you know other vampires.”

  “I don’t hang out with geeks.” She popped in the other earbud.

  “I’m not a geek. I’m a nerd.”

  The stranger slowly removed the newly placed earbud. “There’s a difference?”

  “Duh.”

  She did that weird, low Butthead chuckle thing again. “What’s your name?”

  “Celia Merkin.”

  “You know merkin is slang for a pubic wig.”

  “I know,” Celia said. “It’s not what my name means, though.” She raised her eyebrows haughtily and looked at the pavement.

  “Look, Merk.” She adjusted her stance so one of her thin hips protruded out toward the street. “Find some guy. Have your first bite. Then, you know, pick people up at bars, take ‘em home, and feed.” She shrugged.r />
  “I’m not good at picking up guys,” Celia said.

  “No shit?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know you’re serious.” The woman pushed her dark sunglasses up on her nose and reinserted her earbud. “Just…bite somebody.” She turned and started clomping away.

  Celia was about to walk back inside Happy Gas when the mean vampire stopped walking.

  “Hey, Merk.”

  “Yeah?”

  She took off her sunglasses. She had on dark purple eye makeup that made the whites of her eyes glow like icebergs. “If you haven’t bitten anyone yet, how are you…” She gestured with her sunglasses. “How are you walking around right now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You should be dead, desiccated, like, dried up.” She indicated a choking gesture at her neck.

  “Oh, I have a dealer,” Celia said.

  The purple-headed oddball stomped toward Celia, which made Celia step back until her ass hit the ice cooler out front. “You have a dealer? How the fuck do you have a dealer?”

  Celia stuttered.

  “Merk. English.”

  “I have a connection.”

  “What connection?” She stuck her chin out at Celia.

  “I’m not supposed to say!”

  The woman’s dark eyes looked up and down the main drag of Admiral Key, and she sniffed the air. “You got blood at your house right now?”

  “Yeah, I keep a weekly supply.”

  “When do you get off work?” The woman was so close, Celia could hear synth music from the lonely earbud that hung over her shoulder.

  “Not until close to sunrise.” Celia frowned. “But I don’t work tomorrow night.”

  “Cool. Let’s hang out.”

  “Really?”

  “Totally.” The stranger tried to smile. It looked kind of like a cheerful sneer. “I’m Imogene.”

  Woodsy BO Guy walked by her apartment twice during the day while Celia slept on and off, awakened by the itchy twitch in her nose. He lived right next door. The place was empty for a while, because Celia was on one side and her crazy landlady, Heidi, was on the other. No one wanted to live right next to their landlady, especially since Heidi had ears like a bat and obsessively watched this show about real-life murderers called True Crime at the volume of the hearing impaired.