On the way home I couldn't keep my thoughts from careening into one another like bumper cars. So much had happened that didn't make sense. Once back in my apartment, I sat in the armchair with an old-fashioned glass in my hand, scotch and boar's blood served neat. Midway through the second glass, my thinking had calmed enough for me to analyze with some degree of coherence what I did and didn't know.
My first break had been the revelation from Tamara that Dr. Wong possessed the Tiger Team report about Building 707, but that in turn raised more questions. Why would the head of Radiation Safety keep the report from his boss, Gilbert Odin? Who was the report intended for, and what did it describe? Tiger Teams were special national-level committees convened to investigate serious concerns about nuclear-weapons safety. They never issued a finding that didn't cause someone's head to roll in the dust. I hadn't heard of any heads rolling at Rocky Flats…yet. Maybe my friend Gilbert Odin was afraid that ax would fall across his own neck.
The second revelation was this mysterious yellow aura emitted by the nymphomaniacs and their ability to resist vampire hypnosis.
Third, someone had come after me with a rifle. Why? I doubted they were soliciting memberships for the NRA.
Last, and equally troubling, was Jenny's mentioning that someone had been asking about vampires. This someone knew about the nymphomania, and yet what he queried Jenny about was vampires. A human asking about vampires? Impossible. Or maybe he wasn't human. And why would he make the connection between the outbreak of nymphomania and us vampires?
I set my empty glass on the end table. Tomorrow I would keep digging into the nymphomania until I found out who was asking questions about me.
Chapter 8
AFTER A RESTLESS NIGHT, I commuted to Rocky Flats the next morning. During the drive, I ate my usual morning pick-me-up, an apple and a low-fat cinnamon scone washed down with a blend of dark Sumatran java and goat's blood.
I "worked" in the same building as Dr. Wong and knew him in passing. I was one of many health physicists at Rocky Flats, most of whom were contractors or on loan from another DOE facility, so my presence was no novelty. As a government contractor, it didn't take much for me to look gainfully employed. I walked around with a notebook full of whatever papers I had found in my desk. I signed up for meetings I would never attend. In general, I kept a lower profile than a bedbug in a mattress.
Dr. Wong was the key to the next step in my investigation. To bait him into revealing the Tiger Team report, I created a bogus excerpt from an incident summary about Building 707. Using details Tamara had given me, I entered the names of the three RCTs, their contamination levels, and a description of their survey.
I printed out the document and knocked on Dr. Wong's office door. He invited me in.
The room smelled of talc and miconazole nitrate, the active ingredient of antifungal foot spray. Stacks of binders, spiral-bound reports, and thick folders covered every horizontal surface of his office except the floor, flotsam created in the wake of any bureaucracy.
Dr. Wong sat hunched at his desk, reading a book and finishing a chocolate snack cake. His comb-over flopped away from his brown, bald head. A computer monitor and in- and out-boxes formed a barricade across the front of his desk.
Arranged left to right on the wall behind him were his framed diplomas: a bachelor of science in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; a masters in health physics from Georgetown; and a doctorate in health science from MIT. On an end table in the right corner of the room rested a gray safe the size of a single-drawer cabinet. A magnetic placard on the safe's door read: CLOSED.
Narrow-shouldered and with a sloppy gut, Dr. Wong's pear-shaped body settled into the chair. As a senior health physicist, DOE paid him well, yet he wore clunky government-issue black-framed glasses, a cheap short-sleeved shirt, and a clip-on tie. Dr. Wong dressed like he was moonlighting at Radio Shack.
He crinkled the empty cellophone wrapper of the snack cake and looked up from his book: Pathological Effects of Thermonuclear Weapons, Volume IV—Maximizing Civilian Mortality. He tapped the cover. "Oh for the good old days, when working here had a purpose."
"Sorry to disturb your nostalgia, Doctor, but I found something that might concern you."
Dr. Wong looked at his monitor and jiggled the computer mouse. "I don't see that we have an appointment."
"We don't." I held up the summary. "This will only take a minute."
He squinted at my badge. "Mr. Gomez, first make an appointment. That's the protocol, and this is why DOE has an undeserved reputation for sloppiness. People keep circumventing protocol. The nuclear industry is governed by rules, at every level."
"It's an excerpt from an incident summary," I insisted. "I think you should review it."
He gestured to the in-box. "Drop it there."
I couldn't just leave the form, I needed to see his reaction.
"This looks serious. Something about three RCTs getting seventeen rems in Building 707."
Dr. Wong's bland, round face turned dark with shock. He scurried around the desk and snatched the summary from my hand. He studied the form with a quiet, smoldering intensity, turning it over and over as if he couldn't believe what his eyes told him.
He stood barefoot, his trouser cuffs rolled up to mid-shin, his crooked toes dusted with white powder, the source of the miconazole nitrate smell. He was a short man, so I couldn't see why Tamara had called him Big Wong. If it involved the doctor dropping his pants, I didn't want to find out.
"Where'd you get this?" he snapped, oblivious to the comb-over hanging from his head like an open pot lid.
"In my desk, out there." I pointed to the cubicles beyond his door.
"Well, Mr. Gomez—I mean, Felix," he camouflaged his distress with a smile, "I wouldn't be too concerned about this."
"It looks serious to me. I've been in this business a while," I lied. "British Nuclear Fuels. DOD. The EPA. Lawrence Livermore."
Dr. Wong strained to keep his toothy grin while his eyes seemed ready to burst like the bulbs of overheated thermometers. "This summary is nothing to worry about, believe me."
I offered my hand. "Then where should I file it?"
"I'll take care of this." He stepped back to the safe, peeled off the magnetic placard, and flipped it over. The reverse side read: SECRET OPEN.
Dr. Wong grasped the combination dial. He looked over his shoulder at me. "That's all. I'll take care of this."
At last I was on a hot trail. In that safe sat the Tiger Team report. Gilbert Odin could pull his head off the chopping block; and I could wrap this case up, pocket my fee, and go back to California.
I left Rocky Flats, ate dinner—red enchiladas smothered with bull blood—and returned to the office late that evening. The building was empty and dark. Putting on a pair of latex gloves, I entered and removed my contact lenses. In the shadowy interior, everything looked remarkably clear to my vampire vision.
Like any resourceful private detective I carried a locksmith's kit and readily picked the lock of Dr. Wong's office door. The room still smelled like foot spray. I walked directly to the safe and inspected it. A chain looped from the safe's lifting shackle and ran through an eyebolt along the baseboard. I didn't see any wires for an alarm.
This was going to be easy. Closing my eyes to focus my attention, I placed my hands on the safe and delicately turned the combination dial, first to the right and then to the left. I heard and felt the faint clicks when the notches of each tumbler rotated under the bolt-release mechanism. Discerning the subtle differences between the three tumblers, I lined up the first tumbler, then the middle, then the third. Pressing the release button, I twisted the handle.
The safe clicked, and the door swung open.
I was as heady with pride as if I'd hit a home run.
But wait. Inside I found a box of Little Debbie chocolate snack cakes, a can of foot spray, and a dog-eared Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, dated 1986. Stacked to the right in folders marke
d SECRET were documents detailing rad-contaminated biological waste. These papers were dated from last year and described mice, pigeons, and a cat found dead inside the Building 776 glove boxes, an incident of no relevance to me. Next to these I found my bogus incident summary but nothing else about the nymphomania or the Tiger Team report.
Damn. My home run had just turned into a pop fly.
After closing the safe, I shed the gloves, replaced my contacts, and drove home, sour with disappointment. I could think of nothing better than to snuggle into the comfort of a warm coffin and forget the day. I unlocked my apartment and leaned wearily against the front door to push it open.
A stream of cayenne pepper spray splashed my face. My eyes burned. In the instant before I clamped them shut, I glimpsed the brilliant-red aura of my attacker. I bent over, gagging, and rubbed my face to wipe away the searing liquid. Something hard slammed into the back of my head. My thoughts exploded into a thousand colored sparks that quickly dissolved into blackness.
Chapter 9
A BARKING DOG WOKE ME. I opened my eyes—they burned. I reeked of pepper spray. Pushing off the carpet, I sat up and noticed the morning sun trickle around the edges of my window blinds. Outside, the dog finally shut up.
A bent tire iron lay on the carpet. Somebody had whacked me with a blow that would've killed a human, and I'm sure that's what they had intended for me.
With a headache that felt like an electric bell ringing in my frontal lobes, I staggered to the front door and locked the deadbolt.
I retreated into the bathroom to treat my wounds and wash up. I'd been hit so hard that my contacts had been knocked out. If I could've seen my reflection, I'm sure my swollen eyes would've looked like stewed prunes. Dried blood flaked from my scalp. On my head, I felt a crease atop a lump the size of my thumb. When I laid the tire iron against my head—only barely touching the tender flesh—the crease fit into the bent part of the tire iron. The angle of the blow coming from behind meant my attacker was probably right-handed.
Right-handed like the man who had come after me with the M16. Pranging me across the skull with this tire iron would've seemed a practical tactic to a man of his large, muscular size.
I sniffed the handle of the iron, smelling talcum powder and latex residue, then tossed it aside. The attacker had worn disposable gloves, so unless I discovered his name or Social Security number engraved on the metal, I couldn't expect to find much of a clue on it as to his identity or motive.
He knew plenty about me, though. My home address. What kind of car I drove. For now, I was sure he thought I was dead, or close to it. Once he figured out that I was on my feet, he would attack again.
I put on a fresh pair of contacts and folded a compress over the wound. My head throbbed with an ache that four tablets of aspirin weren't able to quell.
In the second bedroom, my desk had been smashed apart. Shattered drawers and torn folders lay scattered on the floor. The computer power cords and modem cable dangled over the desk, where my hard drive and backup had been. What he didn't know was that he had taken a decoy.
Though that wasn't exactly reason to gloat. There had been two attempts on my life—as close to a life as a vampire had—and my apartment had been pillaged.
I checked the kitchen and found my laptop safe behind the false panel in the pantry. I still had my files and I was still alive. The lump on my head started to throb.
What hurt worse than the lump or the nauseating headache was the humiliation of getting KO'd by the human goon who had ransacked my place. Being a vampire, I was heir to the legacy of the most feared ghouls in history, Dracula and Nosferatu. I was supposed to be the terrorizer, not the terrorized.
The attack left me obsessing. Bob Carcano had cautioned me about my refusal to drink human blood, accusing me of ignoring my vampire nature. Was he right? What consequences did that bring? My wounds hadn't healed overnight, which worried me. Last year, I'd been shot in the back and by the following morning, I was fit enough for my Pilates class.
Had the lack of human blood in my diet affected my recuperative powers? Or was it my guilt? Maybe, too, my vampire senses had dulled, and that's why my attacker had gotten the better of me. Or not. I wasn't sure.
Dizzy and spent, I went into my bedroom and pulled the Murphy bed from the wall, exposing my coffin. I climbed in and spent the rest of the day listening to the built-in stereo while I medicated myself into a dreamy haze with ibuprofen and vodka tonics.
When the buzz wore off I remembered Bob's invitation to The Hollow Fang party for tonight. A vampire party. They're either as sedate as an art reception—I've been to one where the guests critiqued watercolors and noshed on scabs they picked off the corpse centerpiece—or they're as raucous as an orgy choreographed by Attila the Hun. I wasn't in the mood for highbrow conversation and scabs—or orgies, for that matter—but if I stayed here, I'd be looking at the same damn ceiling I'd been staring at since morning. Plus I should meet members of the local nidus. Can't have too many undead friends.
When it came time to go, I showered and then jolted my nerves with a tall cup of Costa Rican dark roast spiced with goat's blood. The lump was almost gone and if I fluffed my hair over it, no one could tell that my head had been used for batting practice. And if someone asked, I'd tell him that I'd accidentally let the lid of a coffin slam on me. Clumsy me.
The party was in an east Denver home, a gabled Tudor. Techno music boomed from inside. A chubby woman answered the doorbell, wearing an obscenely tight latex cat suit that pinched a wedge of fat cleavage out the front. Her thick legs teetered on stiletto heels. No mistress of the dark, she looked more like a matron of the refrigerator. Her eyes had a vampire's gleam from costume contacts. "Welcome to our crypt, fellow vampire," she lisped through plastic, glow-in-the-dark fangs.
What a sad poser. No self-respecting vampire would dress like her, not unless there was serious money involved. I excused myself and squeezed past.
Most of the guests wore black, some gaudy latex, others trashy Goth getups with chains and leather, and a few were dressed in dark clothing that looked ordered from Lands' End. Everyone's eyes shone bright, the same as the greeter's from the front door.
I surreptitiously removed my contacts. Instantly, the color of the auras let me know who was vampire and who was human. Makes for an interesting switch when we vampires have to remove our contacts to fit in.
As soon as I got something to eat, I'd start to mingle. I forgot about this being a mixed crowd—vampires and humans—so there weren't many real blood treats on the buffet table in the den, mostly human food. A chocolate cake in the shape of a casket lay in the center of the table. Tamales wrapped in black cornhusks were piled in a chafing dish. Black candles dripped wax on bone-shaped candelabras. A steaming fondue pot held what looked like blood, but it was only marinara sauce—sans garlic, of course. A pyramid of blood-pudding canapés sat on a silver platter. No scabby corpse, thankfully. The cake looked especially rich, so I grabbed a serving knife.
Someone tapped my shoulder. "Cut me a piece of that."
I turned around.
A woman grinned at me. A bright-green aura radiated from her body as if she were plugged into a xenon lamp. With an aura that color, she was not human, and she definitely was no vampire.
"Felix Gomez," she said, "welcome to Denver."
Chapter 10
MY KUNDALINI NOIR jumped so hard I thought it would leap through my belly button.
After last night's attack, my defenses went to maximum alert. This woman made no threatening gestures, so I strained to keep my fangs and talons from springing out and revealing myself to the human guests.
She stood about five feet tall and was narrow-shouldered with broad hips. Wavy brunette hair fell alongside a pixieish face. Her green eyes looked a size too big for her face, her mouth a size too small. She seemed to have been put together from God's spare parts bin, though somehow it worked. She was cute.
So far, this investigation into the
nymphomania at Rocky Flats had introduced me to the paranoia and intrigue within DOE. Soon after that a nympho put a gun to my head, later somebody knocked me unconscious and ransacked my apartment, and now I meet this woman with her mysterious green aura. Perhaps she was a super-nympho.
I fixed a vampire glare on her, strong enough to make the toughest biker whimper in fear. "How did you know my name?"
"Bob Carcano told me," she answered, oblivious of my attempt at zapping her.
What was with this woman? She was no vampire and deflected my powers like no human could. Her green aura became like the pleasant glow from a string of Christmas lights.
She set her hands on her hips and gave me the once-over. "Felix, if you get this excited when I have my clothes on, what would you have done if I'd been naked?"
"What do you mean?"
"Your aura," she replied. "If your erection throbs like that, I'm one lucky girl."
She read my aura? How? Her eyes didn't have tapetum lucidum.
I said, "You're no vampire."
"I"—she mugged nonchalantly as if it were obvious to all but the densest of morons—"am a dryad. Forest sprite to you nontechnical types."
"A forest sprite? That some kind of fairy? Like Tinkerbell?"
"I never cared for her sense of fashion." She wore a wooly red sweater and loose jeans with the cuffs bunched over suede clogs. "Too frou frou for me. I don't have the hips for it."
"What's a dryad doing here among vampires?"
"You got something against me? None of the other vampires do." Her smile eased, then disappeared. "Let me simplify it for you. I could leave and pretend we never met. Would that work?"
The idea that we'd never met disturbed me. I wanted to see her smile again. I barely knew this woman—forest sprite, fairy, whatever the hell she was—and frankly, I didn't want her to go. Her spunkiness excited me. And since my aura was flashing my emotions like a billboard, she had to know that, too. But I couldn't make it too easy for her.
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