The Invoker: A Lawson Vampire Novel 2 (The Lawson Vampire Series)

by Jon F. Merz

  Wirek was still looking me.

  "What?"

  "Got some real distaste playing across your face there, Lawson."

  "Must be the chicken."

  He nodded slowly and went back to reading the inflight magazine. I went back to sleep.

  Osaka’s airport was much the same as I remembered it from a few years previously. Japanese airports are designed to make passengers feel like hamsters in a habitrail. Clear tubes and walkways herd you exactly where you need to go and nowhere else. It’s good security, but it also leaves you uncomfortable.

  We humped a Royal Nepal Airways flight out of Osaka. The flight itself felt surreal. Flight attendants spoke at least four languages and pampered everyone. A sense of peace permeated the plane, even over the whine of the jet engines.

  By the time we touched down in Kathmandu, we’d been in the air for close to twenty-four hours. I felt like shit. Long flights wring me out and leave very little behind.

  Tribhuvan Airport bustled. Smaller than a lot of other international airports, Tribhuvan had the usually assortment of newsstands and small eateries. And it had a lot of crowds. Nepalese and Indians accounted for most of the traffic but sizable mix of Westerners loitered around as well.

  I wanted to get out of the whirling maelstrom as fast as possible. I let Wirek take the lead since he’d been there before. He guided us past our other passengers and we reached the Customs desk quickly.

  While Wirek chatted pleasantly with the officials in fluent Nepali, our bags got a brief going-over. Speaking the home language is always a plus when you enter a foreign nation.

  We got our visas and a big smile

  "Good to go," said Wirek.

  It’s also a plus having authentic passports courtesy of the vampires who work for the State Department.

  "I need a shower and some serious rack time."

  Wirek nodded. "We’ll grab a hotel. We can get started in the morning."

  We walked outside.

  A cool breeze whipped around us as the city evening descended. Wirek took a deep breath and exhaled.

  "Ahhh…you smell it?"

  I took a whiff. The air stunk of sewage. "Christ, is that what I think it is?"

  He nodded. "You bet. Welcome to the top of the world."

  "I always thought shit flowed downhill."

  He laughed. "We’ll get a rikshaw."

  I pointed at the long line of taxis. "What’s wrong with grabbing a cab?"

  "We’re going to Thamel, that’s why."

  "Thamel?"

  "Old part of town. Think of it as tourist central. Streets there are only wide enough for one car and congestion is fierce. A rikshaw’s a safer bet for getting to the hotel." He winked at me. "Unless you want to get stuck in a traffic jam."

  He wandered over to an old wrinkled man who looked almost as old as Wirek himself. A minute passed. Wirek asked a few questions and then motioned me into the back of the carriage.

  Our trip to the hotel gave me an eyeful of Kathmandu life. Small shops bordered the roads and streets, each wedged right up against each other, smashed together like so many sardines. Traders and merchants filled the streets. But many of the shops looked closed.

  "Most folks hit the rack by ten," said Wirek. "Night life is limited."

  "Good thing we’re not here for that," I said.

  The old man pulling the rikshaw sang while he ran, his voice keeping an off-kilter cadence to the clickety clack of the wheels that bounced over small bumps and raised whorls of dust in our wake. The whole city seemed caked in dust. That and the ever-present smell of sewage made me wish we’d opted for the taxi instead.

  But then the roads grew suddenly narrow.

  "Thamel," said Wirek.

  Wirek had called it right.

  The place overflowed with people. Long lines of cars beeped at each other while rikshaws scooted here and there intermixed with streams of people bustling and hustling everywhere like so many ants rushing in and out of their burrows ferrying foods and goods back and forth.

  We reached the hotel. Wirek paid of the rikshawman then hurried us inside. "We’ve still got time for some dinner. You interested?"

  "What kind of meal are we talking about?"

  He eyed me. "Some Nepalese cuisine." Then he grinned. "We don’t need more of that just yet. Let’s get some normal food and plot out a course to the school."

  We entrusted our bags to a young porter Wirek tipped with a twenty dollar bill. The porter’s eyes went wide. Wirek laughed as he hurried off to deposit our bags in our rooms.

  "Kid’ll do anything to make sure our stuff is safe. Let’s go."

  We got sucked back into the street flow. Wirek steered us to a small eatery called the Blue Note.

  "Looks American."

  "Ex-pat runs it last I knew of," said Wirek. "Food’s good stuff. Very Nepali though."

  We sat down to a meal of chilied chicken and San Miguel beer which, I’ve found, tends to pop up in the most unlikely of areas. The chicken tasted a helluva lot better than the Northwest cuisine.

  Wirek produced a map from his cargo pants pocket and opened it on the table. He looked around at the rest of the restaurant. Trekkers from all over the world seemed to be planning their trips here tonight.

  "Thamel tends to be the jump point for most of these folks," said Wirek in a whisper. "Let’s hope no one wants to join our jaunt."

  I sucked down some beer. "So, where are we going?"

  Wirek stabbed the upper corner of the map with his finger. "Mustang."

  "Nice car," I said. I kill myself sometimes.

  "It’s a semi-restricted zone in Nepal," said Wirek ignoring my bad joke. "Foreigners aren’t even supposed to go there without a local liaison officer tagging along to make sure you don’t break any of the rules."

  "What kind of rules?"

  "You can’t give kids anything – they might turn into beggars. No trash on the trails. You can’t stay with the locals in their houses, you have to bring your own tent, that sort of thing."

  "Why’s it so restricted?"

  "Look at the map, hotshot. See how the entire region juts into Tibet? For years it was a staging area for the Khampa guerrillas that used to fight for Tibet’s freedom from the Chinese. They used Mustang to hop back and forth over the border harassing Chinese troops. They were backed by the American CIA during the 60s and 70s. CIA gave ‘em guns and money. The Nepali government finally cracked down."

  "Why so?"

  "Shit, Lawson, they’re not fools. They know that they’re kind of in a hairy situation. They got a million Chinese troops a few miles north of here all ready to pour over the border. They aren’t going to risk their sovereign state for a bunch of guerrillas. They restricted travel there."

  "So, how are we gonna get there?"

  "Well, you’re supposed to have a special permit ahead of time, but obviously we didn’t have time to file for one. And they only allow about 1,000 foreigners to visit there each year." Wirek drank some tea. "Luckily, I know a fellow here in town who can get us what we need."

  "What about the tag-along officer? Any way we can ditch him?"

  Wirek nodded. "Not a problem. Most of the officers can be bought off." He folded the map. "We’ll fly out of here tomorrow to Jomsom and have to walk from there. Figure about six days to reach the school."

  "Are you kidding me? That’s cutting it pretty damned close to the wire."

  "There’s no other choice. Helicopter rides are out-of-this-world expensive. Plus the two of us would attract too much attention. We’ll just have to hustle."

  "You up for that?"

  "Hey, I can hold my own."

  "If you say so."

  "I do."

  "Okay, just checking. Don’t freak out on me."

  "You just worry about dealing with the high altitude acclimatization and I’ll worry about keeping up."

  "Acclimatization?"

  "Yeah, cowboy, we’re traveling into the upper altitudes. That’s one reason
why the trek takes so long. Bodies don’t get used to the change in altitude for a few days, even ours. Don’t expect to get much sleep."

  "If we’re humping packs and walking our asses off, I’m not concerned about sleep."

  Wirek grinned. "You will be."

  "Once we reach Mustang province, our destination is Lo Monthang. We’ll be able to get to the school easily enough from there. It’s disguised as a Tibetan Buddhist temple. And since there are two other gorgeous temples up there, the school never gets any attention because from the outside it looks like shit."

  "What’s Lo Monthang like?"

  "It’s like shit," said Wirek. "No running water, no electricity, no telephones – it’s old world. The two temples date back about five hundred years and the city predates them by a few hundred as well. Not much has changed there. It’s mud brick that’s got an adobe-like consistency. Dusty dirt lanes-"

  "I’m getting used to that."

  "And no plumbing facilities to speak of. Which reminds me, you’d better stock up on toilet paper back at the hotel."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Toilet paper is unheard of in this part of the world, friend. Out in the countryside, they use their left hand and a jar of water to clean themselves."

  "Great. I’m loving this country already."

  "Well, if things go well we’ll be back in the states in a week or so. Once we get the boy we’ll have to hustle out of there pretty fast so maybe we can arrange a chopper out of Lo Monthang to Jomsom. That might be good. I’ll arrange that as well."

  I finished my San Miguel. "Great. Sounds great."

  Wirek looked at me. "You’ll love this, trust me."

  "Can’t wait." I fished some money out of my pocket and left a wad on the table. "Ready to head back to the hotel?"

  "Not just yet. You go on ahead. I’ll take care of a few other things we need. I’ll catch up with you later but if you don’t hear from me, plan to be at the airport for 7am in the morning so we can get to Jomsom."

  "7am?" I’d been looking forward to some hearty sleep.

  Wirek nodded. "It’s for the boy, Lawson. Keep telling yourself that."

  "Yeah," I said. But it didn’t make it any easier.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I woke up at quarter to six the next morning, rolled out of my fluffy bed and padded into the small bathroom to wash up. The small porcelain sink spilled out brown-tinged water that eventually ran clear. I sighed.

  Wirek’s bed looked like it hadn’t been slept in.

  I wondered where he spent the previous night.

  By six-fifteen he hadn’t appeared. I locked the door and called the porter who got our stuff downstairs. I gave him another twenty and asked him to fetch a rikshaw.

  It then took me another five minutes to mime to the rikshawman that I needed to go back to the airport. By the time we got there at quarter to seven, the city was already hopping.

  I hopped off the rikshaw just shy of a deranged taxi driver who swerved to avoid hitting the elderly driver. I hauled our gear down and looked around.

  No Wirek.

  Fortunately, a wiry security guard by the front entrance pointed me to the Royal Nepal Airlines gate for a flight to Jomsom. As I approached the ticket counter, I saw Wirek waving me over.

  He still wore the same outfit he’d had on the day before, the one he’d flown over from the States in. I wrinkled my nose at the thought of how bad he must smell. Of course, by then, the pervasive stench of sewage in the city had acclimated my nose. I wasn’t sure if Wirek’s body odor would be able to penetrate.

  "Where the hell did you go last night?"

  He grinned. "I told you I had some things to take care of. What’s the big deal?"

  "The big deal is you left me at the hotel. I might not have been able to find my way here. Remember? I don’t speak Nepalese."

  "It’s actually called Nepali."

  "Whatever."

  Wirek frowned. "C’mon Lawson, gimme a break. You’re a big boy. You know how to find your way around even if you don’t speak the lingo. I told you the timings. You’re here. What’s the problem?"

  "Forget it." I sighed. Third-world countries and I don’t really get along all that well.

  "I got the tickets already," said Wirek. He handed me one. "I hope you’re not claustrophobic."

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "Our plane’s a small twin-engine job for the run up to Jomsom. She looks old."

  "Great. Killed halfway around the frickin’ world because the damned plane crashed. That makes perfect sense."

  Wirek grabbed his bag and mine. "C’mon. Let’s get on board."

  We walked through the security checkpoint and out on to the tarmac. Wirek wasn’t joking. The plane didn’t look old.

  It looked ancient.

  I walked around the outside of it, wondering whether the propellers were taped on or not.

  From the outside it looked like it might hold twenty people. Inside, reality told me that ten would be pushing its maximum capacity, including our luggage. A single flight attendant who was dressed for outdoor survival helped us with our bags.

  "Interesting uniform," I said to Wirek.

  Wirek promptly babbled something off to her and she smiled and spoke to him for a minute. He turned back to me. "You’re right," he said.

  "About what?"

  "She’s dressed that way in case they have to ditch the plane. Skirts aren’t too practical for parachuting out of planes."

  I scrunched myself into the window seat behind the propeller and sighed. "Great."

  Wirek plopped down next to me. "How come you always take the window?"

  "It’s spiritual."

  "Spiritual?"

  "Absolutely. I will spend the entire length of the trip willing the wings and propellers to work properly."

  Wirek grinned. "Fair enough."

  The engines started with a bang.

  It scared the crap out of me.

  I watched the flight attendant close the door and strap herself into a folding chair that faced us.

  I leaned over to Wirek. "Does she pitch the peanuts to us when it’s snack time?"

  Wirek ignored me. He was studying his map again. I looked back out the window, gave a silent prayer to the twenty thousand various deities I know about and then watched the prop on my side start to turn.

  Somehow we managed to jump ahead of the major carriers lining up on the runway and take off on schedule. I settled down once we were airborne, but I wasn’t looking forward to the landing.

  "How long is the flight?"

  Wirek checked his watch. "Maybe an hour or so. It’s been a while since I was here last. Things have changed."

  "How so?"

  "There were no planes back then. You walked everywhere or got a horse if you were lucky. And rich. I was neither."

  "How long were you here for?"

  "A few years." He went back to the map.

  I closed my eyes.

  Just as I started to relax, we hit turbulence. Mild at first, it soon turned into jolting swells of air pressure that tossed us all over the sky. I lost track of how many times my stomach remained on the ceiling while the rest of me dropped like a stone.

  Thankfully, we hadn’t gotten our peanuts yet.

  Wirek remained completely unfazed by the entire event. For someone who might not have flown in Nepal before, he seemed remarkably at ease with the whole process. I think he was the only one who was.

  Even our flight attendant looked upset.

  Ten minutes after it started, we got through the worst of it. The pilot announced that we’d be descending into Jomsom within a few minutes. That was good news because I didn’t know how much longer I could stand being on such a small plane.

  Jomsom paled in comparison to Kathmandu. In fact, the airport looked like little more than a few mud huts and a windsock. It brought back memories of when I’d flown onto the island of Palawan in the Philippines. That airport
was an open-air hut, a windsock, and a stretch of hardened dirt scraped out of the jungle. It looked like something used by drug traffickers.

  We started our descent. I watched the mud houses grow larger.

  We bumped, rattled, and eventually skidded to a stop about thirty feet from the closest hut. Some of the other passengers on the flight with us got to their feet slowly, obviously nauseated from the roller coaster ride.

  Outside, the sun shined bright and dust whorls settled as the props wound down to a stop. Around us the flat, featureless stretch of northern desert loomed while in the distance, green meadows and snow-peaked mountains stood out against the contrast of bright blue sky.

  Wirek handed me my bag. "Let’s get going. We need to get our transportation squared away."

  "I thought we were walking."

  "Walking takes six days unless you push it hard. We don’t have six days. We’ve got four. And we need to reach Lo Monthang within three so we can figure out how we’re going to tackle Arvella. If we walk, we might as well go home now."

  "What are our choices? You said flying in was out of the question-"

  "Horses," said Wirek. "We can ride most of the way. It’s just a matter of finding someone who’ll let us borrow some."

  "You know anyone up here who would?"

  "Most of the folks I did know are probably dead by now. And the local vampire population-they call them yidam in this part of the world-is remarkably secret about itself. We probably wouldn’t know them unless we saw their mark."

  "And it’s not like they walk around topless here, either."

  "Exactly," said Wirek. "Our best bet is to press on, find someone with horses and get cracking."

  It was too bad, actually, because the help of local vampires could have saved us a lot of effort. But at the same time, it might have been better this way. If the locals knew a couple of out-of-town vampires had just shown up, word might spread. And we could walk into a pretty bad ambush up in the hills.

  The air felt cooler up here. Kathmandu by comparison had been very comfortable. Warm in some ways. Jomsom, at a higher elevation, felt tinged by the winds off the mountains in the distance.