I raised the cup to her. “Good morning. Welcome to the world of the undead.”
Phaedra grimaced with pain and reached to hold her jaw as if opening her mouth was agony. She winced when she scraped her cheek with her talons. She looked at me and her eyes were incandescent with anger and resentment. “Why didn’t you tell me about the pain? I feel it from my head to my feet.”
“I warned you. The metamorphosis from human to vampire will pass, but it’s the least of your troubles.”
She collapsed and rested her head on the side of the bench. “I feel so sick.”
“Take it easy on yourself. This is only the first day. Wait until you have to learn how to apply makeup without a mirror.”
Phaedra squirmed and reached for her side.
“You’ll find that it healed,” I said.
She peeked under her blouse. “Still hurts like hell.” She lay back in the bench.
I stood over her and offered my cup. “Sip?”
“No thanks. I feel like crap.” She had the splotchy pallor of a fever victim. Her skin wasn’t yet translucent.
“Funny thing, though I’m not a doctor, my diagnosis is that you also look like crap.”
She kept her eyes lightly closed. Her throat twitched and she swallowed hard.
“Whatever you do, try not to throw up in the sleeping bag.”
She rubbed her face. “When will I feel normal?”
“Human normal? Never.”
“Then when will I feel better?”
“Depends. Usually, people don’t want to be vampires, so they fight the turning. You wanted it, so it might be easy for you.” I sat on the adobe bricks. “Here’s something you have to know. It’s the iron law of vampires. Human society can never know we exist. They believe we are mythical creatures. In fact, we play along with that charade.”
Phaedra averted her eyes and I could see that she tuned me out.
I cupped her chin and made her look at me. “You mess this up and you die. The humans you tell will also die.”
“What about me? I was a human and knew you were a vampire.”
“I was ordered to kill you. I didn’t because I fudged the rules. I wasn’t sure what would happen, but the last thing I wanted was to turn you.”
“What happens now?”
“You’re one of us. You get to live.”
Phaedra lay back into the sleeping bag. She closed her eyes and turned her head.
“When you get hungry, let me know.”
“Just thinking about blood,” she whispered, “makes me want to throw up.”
I watched for a moment. She remained still and her aura cooled.
I returned to my gear. I cleaned my pistol-it wasn’t dirty but I was nervous and needed something to do. I emptied the three magazines and polished the cartridges. I reloaded the magazines and put the extra loose rounds in my pocket.
We weren’t that deep in the forest, but we were far away enough from the road so that the distant growl of motorcycles was obvious in the silence.
Was it zombies?
The motorcycles stopped in the vicinity where I’d parked the 4Runner. One engine cut off, followed by another. Two bikes.
I told Phaedra to keep quiet. I went outside and found a spot behind a growth of sumacs. I would hide there and observe the path to the morada.
The shiver along my arms relayed that my sixth sense had confirmed the advance of strangers. I waited for the snap of breaking twigs or the crunch of grass, but whoever approached were as stealthy as lynx.
An orange aura shimmered beyond the trees.
Vampire.
I stayed down despite the fact that my aura marked my position.
The vampire had red hair and a complexion like she’d rubbed her face with strawberries and dotted her cheeks with cinnamon sprinkles. Her hair was gathered back and draped behind her shoulders.
Jolie.
I felt the elation of recognizing a familiar vampire, then realized that she was here for the same reason I was. As an enforcer. I also realized that the crow I’d seen earlier was a spy and that it had been sent to confirm where I was.
Jolie’s aura glowed with guarded anxiety like mine would if I had to deliver bad news to a friend. She wore a black-and-red Joe Rocket motorcycle jacket and matching racing pants. The armored pads on her arms and shoulders exaggerated her muscularity. She moved like she was skating in slow motion so I knew she was using levitation to lighten her footsteps.
I had heard two motorcycles. Where was the other rider?
Jolie’s eyes locked onto me. The fuzz of anxiety on her penumbra sprouted short quivering tendrils. She relented from the levitation. Her heavy motorcycle boots tromped through the grass and forest debris.
She let a backpack slide off her shoulder and held it in gloved hands.
I stepped in front of the junipers and kept my pistol in a loose grip. I didn’t want to signal anything threatening. Jolie and I had a history.
If there was one vampire I never wanted to harm, it was Jolie, and here she came on a mission that might include punishing me. If I had to shoot Jolie, 45 slugs wouldn’t do much good unless they were silver.
She halted a half-dozen paces from me. Her severe expression matched my mood.
I asked, “Where’s the other vampire?”
“Right here.” The growl came from my left.
He was a squat muscular Asian in black armored riding leathers. He passed soundlessly through the junipers.
“You got a name?”
“Nguyen Trotsky Hoang.”
“You were named after a commie?”
“No. I was named after my uncle. Let’s stick to business. Where’s the girl?”
I gestured to the morada.
“Did you…” Jolie started.
The answer had to be either kill her or turn her.
“I turned her.”
The tendrils from Jolie’s aura shrank with relief. She zipped open the backpack and withdrew a long leather pouch. She undid the leather thong wrapped around one end.
Jolie peeled the pouch back like a foreskin and exposed an exceptionally phallic-looking wooden stake, the blunt end made of silver. I winced at the pungent odor of hawthorn resin, poisonous to vampires. She removed the blunt end and revealed a sharpened wooden point reinforced with veins of silver. A stake made of hawthorn and silver was the most effective and painful of weapons to use against a vampire.
“Who’s that for?” I asked.
Nguyen said, “You.”
My guts turned into pulp. I’d compromised the Great Secret and, despite the warnings, had forced a good friend into killing me or compromising herself.
Jolie cinched the thong around the stake and dropped it in the bag. “The Araneum knows we are friends yet they also gave me this.” She pulled out a short knife in a leather sheath tooled in a woven pattern. The handle of the knife was filigreed with yellow gold and platinum. Rubies decorated the pommel. The knife looked designed by the same craftsmen who made the messenger capsules.
She unsheathed the short curved blade. “I was to skin you.”
Nguyen’s mouth curled into a grin.
Not only was Jolie to kill me, she had orders to bring back my skin. Nguyen was to make sure it would get done. For an instant I felt that blade slice through the membrane holding my skin to my flesh, followed by the hellacious agony as the skin was ripped free. The imagined sensation scorched me to the marrow. I pictured Jolie flaying my body and folding the bloody envelope of my skin-I saw my face as a loose bag, the eyeholes, nostrils, and mouth sagging into ragged ovals.
Could she skin me?
Could I kill her?
My only escape was to murder these two, but more enforcers would be sent after me, and more after that until I was caught and my skin turned into parchment. I had forever to run and the Araneum had forever to catch me.
I could think of only one thing to say under these circumstances.
“Let’s have coffee.”
> I led them to the morada. Since I’d been outside in the fresh air, once in the morada I became aware of stove fuel odor, coffee, and vomit.
Phaedra lay inside the bench.
Jolie and Nguyen studied a fanged bag of blood and the vomit spot on the floor.
Jolie said, “At least the girl tried to eat.”
She knelt and spread the sleeping bag from Phaedra’s face. “Jeez, Felix, you chicken hawk, you’re picking them kinda young, aren’t you?”
“She picked me.” I gave my story, starting with the hallucinations.
Nguyen looked around the room. “Where is the psychotronic diviner?”
I didn’t want to answer. I’d screwed up enough with Phaedra.
“Well?” The edge in Nguyen’s voice said he was tired of waiting.
“The zombies have it.”
“How did that…”
Jolie cut him off. “We’ll go over that later. Right now let’s see what we can do about the girl.”
Tendrils betraying Nguyen’s annoyance stuck out from his aura. He wanted me to think of him as the vampire in charge, but it was obvious Jolie made the decisions. He sat on his heels and picked over Phaedra’s camping gear.
I explained Phaedra’s diagnosis with Huntington’s. My guess was that her brain disease had made her a conduit for psychic consciousness. I added that she had no chance of living past thirty, and that she wanted me to turn her into a vampire.
“And you first said no?” Jolie asked.
“I did.”
Jolie stroked Phaedra’s forehead in a gentle and surprisingly maternal gesture. “Yet here she is.” Jolie took Phaedra’s right hand and massaged the web of flesh between thumb and forefinger. Phaedra’s aura gave a tiny pulse.
I didn’t need Jolie digging into the guilt I felt about Phaedra. We had enough stockpiled over Carmen.
I primed the stove and lit the burner. “How’s she doing?” I measured coffee into the percolator basket, filled the pot with water, and set it on the stove. “I don’t have much experience at turning.”
“Doesn’t take much practice. But she’s doing well. Better than most.” Jolie tucked Phaedra’s hand back into the sleeping bag and pulled the zipper to her chin. “Vampires this young can be exceptionally powerful.”
“How so?”
“The exuberance of youth. Their incredible powers of recuperation. They’re more adventurous and less inhibited.”
“That’s Phaedra to a T, but I don’t think that’s a good thing.”
“She’ll adjust. We all do.”
“I mean I don’t think it’s good she’s a vampire.”
“Don’t worry. The Araneum will take care of her.”
The coffee perked. I offered Jolie and Nguyen their choice from the bags of blood. She fanged open an O-negative.
“I only have two cups.”
“You and I can share.” The comment was directed at me but meant for Nguyen.
We split the bag between two cups that I filled with coffee. He took the second cup and flipped a resentful gaze at her.
Jolie placed her backpack on the floor and sat on the adobe bricks of the bench. She got close and examined my face.
“You look like you’ve been on the wrong end of an ass kicking.”
I told them about Dr. Hennison and the zombies. They listened pensively, their auras contracting and expanding like bellows. I emphasized a warning about the zombie collective consciousness.
“What’s the next step?” Nguyen asked.
“We destroy them as soon as possible,” I said. “Dr. Hennison’s got bad wounds. His priority is survival. The zombies are good at chasing, they’re not so good at being chased. Now that I know the layout of their lair and their capabilities, we should have no problem wiping them out.”
“Who’s minding the girl?” Jolie asked.
“Figured you were,” Nguyen said.
Jolie shook her head. “Guess again, hot stuff. You stay here.”
“Bullshit to that. I’m no babysitter.”
“Do what I tell you.”
Nguyen stood and glared.
Jolie remained on the bench. “Either sit back down or I’ll kick your ass from here to Denver.”
Nguyen shot a puzzled, embarrassed look like I was going to come to his rescue. Why did he bother? If a boulder fell on him this instant, I’d cheer for the rock.
Nguyen didn’t sit. He flicked his hand in a rude wave and turned his back to us. Mr. Bad Ass bloodsucker in his black leathers stood by the door and pouted.
Jolie asked, “What’s next?”
“We’ll need weapons. A machine gun. A flamethrower.”
A tendril lashed from the top of Jolie’s aura. “No problem. I’ll go to the nearest Home Depot and get a dozen of each. Seriously, where do you plan to get them?”
I pulled my cell phone from a coat pocket. “Not from where, but from who.”
“From who, then?”
“From the last guy who wants to hear from me.”
“That’s a long list,” Jolie replied. “Be more specific.”
“Sal Cavagnolo.”
CHAPTER 51
I gave Jolie the rundown on Cavagnolo. He’d supply me with guns.
“Even a flamethrower?” Jolie asked.
“If he has one, I’ll take it. Otherwise, I’ll improvise something.”
“Let’s go.” On her way out the door, she slapped Nguyen on the arm. “Don’t lose the kid.”
We trotted down the slope to my Toyota. Two big adventure-touring motorcycles stood beside my 4Runner. Jolie explained that the BMW was hers, the Buell Ulysses was Nguyen’s. She put on a full-face helmet.
I drove to Cavagnolo’s house. Jolie followed on her bike.
On the way to Cavagnolo’s I thought about the plan to get Hennison. I was glad Jolie was with me. There wasn’t a better brawler anywhere. Plus, her loyalties were on my side.
Nguyen? If he had to fight, would he back off at a critical time and let the zombies do his dirty work?
And providing we did return safely, what about Phaedra?
I paused at the gravel turnoff to Cavagnolo’s property. Jolie halted. In my rearview mirror all I could see was her riderless BMW motorcycle proceeding upright like an invisible ghost was at the controls.
Cavagnolo’s house was an older ranch style covered in plain beige stucco. The original structure was a simple rectangle and over the years additions had been grafted to the sides so that the house sprawled across the width of his lot. Lush rosebushes bordered a small, yellowed lawn.
I followed the gravel road to a driveway on the east side of his home. A white Porsche Cayenne was parked in front of a garage at the end of the driveway.
Jolie rode her BMW off the road and halted beside a thick stand of shrubs. She dismounted and disappeared into the shadows.
I hadn’t thought about Cavagnolo’s reception. Jolie was wise in anticipating trouble.
Two unseen dogs barked.
A woman appeared in the screen door of the main entrance. As I drove close, the woman opened the door and stepped into a pair of lime green gardening clogs by the front mat.
She looked mid to late thirties and wore jeans and a loose blouse-typical country working attire. She shared Cavagnolo’s Mediterranean complexion and I couldn’t decide if she was his wife or a sister.
She came straight to me, her face hostile. “Who are you?”
“I’m a friend of Sal.”
“What friend? What do you want here?”
Cavagnolo came out the front door. “How do you know where I live?”
“Phaedra showed me.”
“Where is she?”
Cavagnolo’s wife complicated the situation. With her around, I couldn’t ask him about guns, so I pretended my visit was only about Phaedra.
If I told Cavagnolo she was with me, then he’d make a fuss about bringing her here, which I wasn’t going to do. Instead I said, “I don’t know.”
“Oh, no.” H
is eyes softened in worry. “Is she in trouble?”
“Hope not.” I wanted to reassure Cavagnolo but couldn’t without giving away about what I knew Phaedra. “I’m not sure where she is. Might help if you tell me more about her.”
“She’s a squirrelly girl.”
“Squirrelly? She’s fucking bananas,” the woman said. “A crazy, manipulative little witch.”
“This is my lovely wife, Lorena.”
Her expression was nowhere near “how do you do,” more like “fuck you and drop dead.”
“Phaedra’s been missing since last night,” Cavagnolo said.
Lorena blurted, “That’s three times this month and now you’re worried about the little tramp? You wanna find her? Try the goddamn jail.”
“Lay off,” Cavagnolo snapped. His tone implied there was much he was keeping from his wife. Like Gino’s and Cleto’s disappearances and the other murders.
I needed time alone with Cavagnolo to ask him about the guns I needed. “Could we go in Phaedra’s room? Maybe we’ll find something that’ll tell us where she’s gone.”
Cavagnolo led us around the side of the house. A pair of hounds snarled and barked from behind a chain-link fence surrounding the backyard. He put his hand on the latch of a gate through the fence. He asked Lorena to hold the dogs, but the glance she tossed at us said that she’d rather watch them tear me apart.
We walked on a brick path through the dried lawn to a cottage at the back of the yard. The place looked homey despite its apparent origins as a toolshed or stable.
While Lorena held the dogs, Cavagnolo took me to the cottage’s front door. He turned the knob.
“Was the door locked?” I asked.
“No. Out here, nobody locks their doors.”
They better start.
The room wasn’t much larger than a walk-in closest. The only window was to the left, above a desk with a computer monitor, a wooden chair, and shelves. To our front: bunk beds, a credenza, and more shelves. The furniture was mismatched hand-me-downs. At the right, another door opened to a tiny bathroom.
Other than the computer, I didn’t see much of a preoccupation with schoolwork. A few books and cups with pens but most of the shelves held stuffed animals and glittery toys. Girly stuff.
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