Carmen looked over her shoulder. “You checkin’ me out?”
Maybe I should risk getting wrung dry. I put on my best smirk.
She winked. “Thanks. Otherwise there’s no point in dressing like this.”
“Where we headed?”
Carmen unclipped the keys hooked to a belt loop on her shorts. “You asked about The Undead Kama Sutra and how I got my tan. It’s time to show you.” She grasped the handlebars of the green chopper, arced her leg over the frame, and settled onto the seat.
I asked, “Did you get my messages?”
“I did.”
“Why didn’t you reply?”
Carmen inserted the ignition key. “You asked what gives? I wanted you to come and find out. Show me how bad you want to know.” She cocked her thumb to the pinion seat of the motorcycle. “Climb on. We’re going to the dock.”
“I can drive. You ride on the back.”
Carmen shook her head. “Like hell. It’s my bike. You can either walk or ride bitch.”
“I’ll follow in my car.”
Carmen started the engine. She shouted above the roar from the exhaust pipes. “Quit being such a macho caga palo. Take the stick out of your ass. Forget your goddamn car. It’s not going anywhere. Just get on.”
You couldn’t argue with Carmen. I swung a leg over the rear seat. Carmen reached with her left hand and groped for my arm. She pulled it across her waist. My right arm reached around so that I clasped both arms against her very trim and firm middle. For a vampire, she was surprisingly warm, or was that my imagination?
I had barely planted my feet on the rear pegs when the chopper jumped from the curb. The front wheel tucked to the left; Carmen barely straightened it before we flipped to the side. We swerved past a yellow Porsche Carrera, missing the rear fender by millimeters.
We skimmed close to a row of parked cars. I had to jerk my shoulders aside to avoid getting slapped by the mirrors.
“There’s no rule that says you can’t drive down the middle of the road,” I shouted.
“You want to obey the rules,” she shouted back, “then stay away from me. Shut up and enjoy the scenery.”
Carmen took Duval Street and merged into traffic. We approached the harbor and parked alongside a steel-pipe barricade.
I got off the bike first, thankful that we’d made it without being flung against the asphalt. Carmen took a tightly wrapped paper bag out of one of the leather panniers. The quart-sized bag bore a crude inked stamp: YERBAS DE BOTÁNICA OSHÚN. MIAMI, FLORIDA.
Herbs of Oshún Apothecary. My mother and aunts used to shop in Mexican botánicas for folk remedies, some of which worked and others were merely superstitions-and a waste of money. “Does what’s in that bag have anything to do with your tan?” Maybe some of the superstitious recipes did work.
Carmen squeezed the bag and crinkled the paper wrapping. “I didn’t buy this to make bread.”
Typical Carmen answer. “Who’s Oshún?”
“She’s an orisha, a Santeria goddess.”
“Santeria? So this is about voodoo? You’re going to stick pins in a doll of me?”
“I don’t need pins or Santeria. I can kick your ass on my own.”
I stepped out of her reach, just in case she wanted to prove something. “How did you get involved with Santeria?”
“I’m Cuban.” Carmen crouched to fit a lock on her front brake disk. “It’s part of my heritage. The African slaves brought their beliefs to the Caribbean. You don’t know much about Santeria, do you?”
“I know some. There’s that song Babalu, by Ricky Ricardo. That’s about Santeria, right?”
“He was Desi Arnaz when he recorded it,” Carmen said. “And yes, the song is about Santeria.”
“So who is Oshún?”
“The goddess of beauty and sensuality. We call upon her magic.”
“For what?”
“To make us better lovers, of course.”
“How come Desi Arnaz didn’t write a song about her?”
“I don’t know, Felix. If Desi was alive you could ask him.”
Dozens of sailboats and yachts were moored to the pier and their lights twinkled festively over the water. Carmen walked down the ramp to a thirty-foot Bayliner cruiser and hailed someone on board.
I removed my sunglasses.
A man appeared from the cabin. A red aura surrounded him. Human.
Carmen stepped off the dock and into the cockpit of the boat. She and the man clasped hands, and he kissed her on the cheek. Her orange aura glistened with affection. Vampires only show that kind of attraction to “chalices,” humans who willingly offer themselves and their blood to their vampire masters.
Carmen waved me aboard and I joined her in the cockpit. She introduced me to Thorne, a ropy-muscled man in his mid-twenties. The word “strapping” came to mind; someone who could satisfy her sexual appetite. Was he her research partner for The Undead Kama Sutra? A bandanna covered his neck, advertising his status as a chalice to those in the undead family. He didn’t say much and smiled politely.
Carmen carried the botánica bag and stooped to enter the boat’s cabin. She came out empty-handed and ordered that we shove off.
Moving athletically on his sturdy, hairy legs, Thorne cast loose from the moorings. Her hungry gaze followed him.
Thorne took the helm. He flipped switches across the instrument panel. The navigation lights flicked on. The engine coughed to life. Above the cabin, the radar antenna on the mast began to spin. He adjusted the volume of the radio so the squawks of harbor traffic faded into the background. The Bayliner cruised slowly away from the dock.
A woman’s shriek-a cross between a drunken sorority girl and a hyena on fire-echoed from the pier. An orange glow streaked toward us. Jolie.
She bounded from the edge of the pier. Our boat was a good hundred feet away. Jolie sailed through the air and pumped her arms to keep the momentum. She used vampire levitation to land softly beside Carmen and me.
Jolie raised both her arms in a triumphant salute. “Ta-da.”
“Yeah, great,” Carmen chided. “Where’s your motorcycle?”
Jolie’s aura dimmed. “Shit. I knew I forgot something.”
I introduced myself, then asked, “How was the fight?”
“Totally awesome. One of those assholes got the drop on me and nailed me good.” She pointed to the shiner on her right eye. “I’ll bet it’s a beaut.”
“Looks…wonderful,” I said. “Hurt?”
“Stupid question.” Jolie touched the swollen tissue around her eye. “’Course it hurts. Too bad it’ll heal by the time we get home.”
“Which is where?” I turned to Carmen.
She loosened her braid. She closed her eyes in a blissful trance as she raked her fingers to untangle the tresses. Leaning against the railing of the gunwale, Carmen silhouetted herself against the lights of Key West. Her hair shimmered like a lacy halo. “Houghton Island. It’s in the Snipe Keys northeast of here.”
Once in open water, Thorne opened the throttle and the Bayliner rocked on its wake. Jolie yanked off her boots and socks and scrambled barefoot to the prow, where she sat on the foredeck and sang-more or less-tunes from the eighties. Thorne played with the GPS on the instrument panel and adjusted our course. In the far darkness, red, green, and white lights marked the other boats floating by.
I took a seat on the fantail. “Aren’t the Snipe Keys government islands?” I asked.
Carmen’s aura sparkled with assurance. “That’s what makes our resort so exclusive.”
“A resort? How did you manage that?”
Carmen gave a dimpled smile. “We have chalices in high places.”
“We?”
“There’s a bunch of investors, a few select vampires and chalices. It was my idea…and Antoine’s. You’ll meet him.”
“A few select vampires and chalices? High rollers, I’ll bet. Fun and games on a private island. Must be paradise.”
Carmen’s au
ra prickled with worry. “It was. That’s why I’m glad you came here.”
“Sounds like someone’s found a turd floating in the punch bowl, and I’m supposed to fish it out.” Trouble followed me everywhere.
“Lovely visual, Felix. Yeah, I could use your help.”
“Doesn’t sound like research for The Undead Kama Sutra.”
“It’s not.” Carmen paused for a beat and then explained in a monotone: “A chalice has been missing for two days.”
A missing chalice? I already had plenty to keep me busy, thanks to Gilbert Odin and the Araneum. But Carmen, as an experienced vampire, wouldn’t have asked for help unless she needed it.
“You got a name?”
“Marissa Albert. She arrived at the Key West airport and disappeared. Too bad you didn’t have a chance to meet her, you might have had a lot in common.”
“How so?”
“She’s a private investigator.”
“Was Marissa here on a case?”
Carmen looked flustered. “She didn’t mention it. She called last week and asked for a reservation to the resort. It was kinda sudden, but not too unusual.”
“And you know her from where?”
“We met when I was traveling through Minneapolis.” Carmen smiled at the memory. “She’s a wonderful chalice. It’ll be a shame if anything happened to her.”
“Why would you suspect that? Maybe she ran into a friend and changed plans.”
Carmen lost the smile. “She wasn’t the type to not let me know. I wouldn’t describe Marissa as flighty.”
A missing chalice and an alien threat? Was there a connection? I wanted to share what the Araneum had offered but they had ordered that I keep the information secret.
A series of black humps appeared on the horizon. Thorne pointed the Bayliner toward the largest one.
“Houghton Island,” he said.
As we approached, the island and its crown of trees looked like spiked teeth jutting from the water. The word “paradise” hardly came to mind-it looked like my ass was about to get bitten.
Chapter
6
Thorne slowed the Bayliner as we neared the island. A cluster of lights sparkled within the embrace of a lush bay. As we approached, the cluster became a row of burning torches arranged parallel to the shore, north to south. Farther up the beach, strings of electric bulbs in various colors lit the cabins of a small village. The glow of the torches and electric lights reflected off the beach sand and a small pier.
Reggae music beat the night air from a simple pavilion on the far side of the cabins. Under the thatched roof of the pavilion, vampires and humans danced together, their orange and red auras mixing like swirls of candy.
Carmen pulled off her cowboy boots and socks. Since we’d be walking on sand, I went barefoot as well.
Thorne docked the Bayliner against the pier. Carmen went below into the cabin and brought out the botánica package, which she handed to Thorne with instructions for him to bring it along. She and Jolie leaped from the boat and lashed the bowline to a wharf piling. I hopped onto the pier and started after them up the beach.
A tall black man, stout as a tree trunk, wearing a tank top and baggy shorts, came from the cabins to meet us. His orange aura announced he was a vampire. And one that liked to eat, judging from his belly. A crop of nappy hair ringed his bald scalp, and a goatee and mustache circled his mouth. The reflection of the beach torches danced on his shiny forehead. He smelled like he’d been grilling fish.
Carmen introduced me as a longtime friend from Colorado.
The vampire’s name was Antoine, her business partner. Antoine gave a broad and welcoming smile. He hooked one arm around my shoulders and squeezed hard enough to make me gasp, “Pleasure’s mine.”
Most black vampires looked anemic. Not Antoine. His complexion was as dark and shiny as waxed ebony. Evidently, he shared Carmen’s skin treatment.
Antoine let go and we continued up the beach. Jolie jumped onto Antoine’s back and sat on his shoulders like she was riding in a rodeo.
Carmen strode alongside Antoine. “Any word on the missing chalice?”
Antoine sighed. “Nothing new on Key West. Any word from Miami?”
“No.” Tendrils of anxiety snaked along the periphery of Carmen’s aura. She closed her eyes and brushed a hand through her hair.
Jolie reached from her perch on Antoine’s shoulders and tapped her foot against Carmen’s back. “Chill. You’ve done all you can for now.” Jolie unsnapped her bikini top and twirled it like a pennant. “Time to party.”
Her pointy breasts dared me to leap up and nuzzle them. But from what I’d seen of Jolie, she was as apt to kick my balls as to fondle them. So I stayed on the ground and kept my mouth shut.
The four of us passed through the village. None of the lightbulbs matched. The cords had lumps of electrical tape where frays had been mended. The cabins were simple huts with painted shutters and doors. Colorful streamers-actually cut up sections of awning-dangled from the eaves. Everything looked cobbled together from a salvage yard. I had expected a luxurious Florida resort and it was instead a Third World shantytown fixed up for a party.
“Who built this place?” I asked.
“I did,” answered Antoine. “You won’t believe I got most of this picking through debris from the last hurricane. Saved a ton of money.”
“No kidding?” I asked. “The guests ever complain?”
“I give them a retro experience. The Keys as they were back in the day of rum runners and nickel sandwiches.”
A helicopter rested on a concrete pad between the cabins and the wood line. A threadbare tarp covered the bubble canopy and another tarp (in a different color, of course) covered the engine beneath the rotor mast. Black stains darkened the concrete under the engine. The copter was a vintage Bell 47 Whirlybird. Ropes secured the tips of the drooping rotor blades to eyebolts in the pad.
“You have a helicopter? Why didn’t you fly instead of taking a boat?” I asked.
Carmen cocked her thumb at Antoine. “Ask him.”
“The copter’s mine.” Antoine’s voice sagged with remorse. “Won the damn thing in a poker game and it’s been nothing but trouble.”
“You fly?”
“I gave Howard Hughes his first lesson,” Antoine replied. “I haven’t renewed my license since but I still get around.”
The Bell’s right skid was missing and a stack of cinder blocks and a car jack kept the fuselage propped upright. Beach and kitchen towels hung from the lattice structure of the tail boom. “This thing’s an antique,” I said. “It’d be worth fixing up.”
Antoine shrugged. The gesture said, Mañana.
Two snowmobiles sat on a rusted trailer behind the helicopter. Weeds grew through the trailer and around the flat tires.
“What are you doing with those?”
“Different poker game,” answered Antoine.
We passed through a plume of charcoal smoke carrying the aroma of grilling fish. The smoke rolled out the chimney and the windows of a wooden shack.
“That’s my gourmet kitchen,” Antoine said.
“Looks like it’s on fire,” Jolie noted.
Antoine paused. His aura flared with concern. He yelled to the shack: “Hey, you guys burning my kitchen?”
From inside the kitchen, there came a clanging of metal and an “Oh shit.”
A flame shot out the kitchen chimney. Antoine pulled Jolie off his shoulders. Together they sprinted for the shack.
Carmen shook her head in dismay. She grasped my hand, we turned our backs to the shack, and continued for the pavilion.
A combo band of undead and living played guitars, a baritone saxophone, a marimba, and a variety of drums at the south end of the pavilion. No one wore anything more than a brief swimsuit and dreadlocks. Some wore less.
Groups of chalices stood on the wooden floor of the pavilion, arms waving to the music. I counted seven orange auras besides us. I didn’t recognize any of
these vampires. Counting Antoine, Carmen, Jolie, and myself, that made about three chalices per set of fangs.
Along the floor’s edge, vampires sat on the benches of picnic tables, chalices on their laps, the couples necking like teenagers. A wall of palm fronds decorated with flowers, ribbons, and bunches of rooster tail feathers stood on the far end of the pavilion.
Carmen took me to the center table. A female chalice, topless and fit as a Pilates instructor, removed the lid from a metal stockpot on the table. The smell of a rich bouillabaisse wafted out. Bread rolls filled a basket next to a stack of bowls and utensils.
Carmen patted my shoulder, indicating that I sit. “Antoine’s lack of aesthetic style doesn’t extend to his cooking. Enjoy.” She rubbed my scalp and tousled my hair. “Chow down, Felix, you’re going to need it. Meanwhile I have resort business to take care of.”
I grabbed Carmen’s wrist. “What do you mean, ‘You’re going to need it’? For what?”
She grinned and shook loose. “Every evening we have a party and tonight you’re the guest of honor.” She turned to leave.
The chalice ladled the fish stew into a bowl. The aroma of the bouillabaisse was a teaser compared to the wonderful scent of a thick blood stock, type O-positive, that she added from an insulated metal carafe. Another chalice-a bustier version of the previous one-poured mojitos from an enameled pitcher into short glass tumblers. This was the first decent meal I’d had all day, and after a second helping, I sopped at the last of the gelatinous redness with hunks of bread and washed it down with sips of the sweetened rum drink.
Two chalices cleared the table. Thorne, Carmen’s male chalice, went around with a big pitcher and refilled glasses. This batch of mojitos had a better kick. Maybe it was the blending of different spices, a more potent rum, or something from the botánica.
The sax, marimba, and guitar players paused and let the bongos and conga drums carry the rhythm.
Antoine reappeared from the left side of the pavilion. Vertical red, black, and white stripes covered his torso. A wreath of leaves crowned his balding noggin. His broad lips gripped an unlit cigar. Glitter sparkled in his hair, mustache, and goatee. A necklace of cowrie shells glistened against the dark skin of his neck. He strutted in a cadence that matched the drumbeat, his thick legs parting his only attire, a blue sarong.
The Undead Kama Sutra fg-3 Page 3
