A pair of elderly couples sat at a square table in the middle of the room. The old women unsnapped clear plastic bonnets they had cinched over their blue hair. The four geezers complained that they couldn’t remember when it had been this cold and rainy. Try last year.
Two beefy guys wearing down vests over camouflage hoodies—hunters, I was sure—occupied a booth at the far corner.
No Gino.
The waitress fanned a laminated menu toward the empty booths along the wall. “Your pick.”
I took a seat facing the front window and ordered coffee. I sneaked the bag of type O-negative from my coat and squirted the remaining blood into my cup. I stashed the empty bag back into my pocket. I sipped the warm brew and it comforted me like a hug from a chubby hooker.
What now? Where was Gino? Where were the zombies?
My ears tingled, then my fingertips.
Danger.
I set the cup down.
My kundalini noir coiled, like a viper ready to strike. I curled my fingers to hide my extending talons.
The hairs on the nape of my neck stood up. A shadow glided across the fogged restaurant window. My fangs pushed down from my gums and threatened to poke out from under my lip.
The front door opened. A figure entered the foyer and stood behind the window separating the foyer from the dining room.
The figure wore a blue hooded slicker. The feminine outline suggested a woman.
It was her.
I could feel it.
The girl in the psychic attacks.
How was this possible?
A prickly sensation trickled from my head to my fingertips and toes.
Her rain-shellacked slicker glistened in the fluorescent light from the foyer ceiling. The brim of the slicker’s hood cast a shadow across her forehead to the middle of her face, masking her eyes. Moist strands of brunette hair curled from under the hood.
She clasped the hood in both hands and pushed it up and back as if lifting the visor of a helmet. As she did this, the anticipation turned my stomach into mush.
Her face was on the mature side of adolescence, a woman yet still retaining the soft lines of a girl’s features. The elegant sweep of her nose matched the trace of an elongated face and a delicate chin. Her nose and cheeks were rosy from the outside chill.
This was her.
The girl.
The adolescent girl from my hallucinations. That phoenix who had risen from the ghost of the little Iraqi girl.
The prickly sensation became centipedes digging at my skin. I’m an undead bloodsucker; this creeped-out feeling was not supposed to happen to me.
Her right eye twitched. She rubbed the heel of her hand against the eye. When she brought her hand down, the right eye remained open and still.
Her two dark eyes rested on me, as if I was the only object in the world. The gleam in those eyes bore deep—probing, knowing, menacing.
My kundalini noir twisted like it wanted to find a hole and hide.
For a moment, all I could see were her eyes.
The eyes that had haunted me across the oceans and years since I first saw them in Iraq. Deep as wells, dark as the night I’d last seen them.
My fear became cold, heavy, and paralyzing, like I’d been trapped under a giant block of ice.
Her right eye twitched again.
I am vampire—a seasoned warrior, a supernatural killer—and this woman, this ingenue, this girl with a nervous facial tic, made me shrink in terror.
CHAPTER 16
My body screamed: Danger, get away. This…girl…woman…whatever…was poison. My legs tensed to catapult me through the roof.
I forced myself to stay put. Since when did I run away?
Relax. Look tough but nonchalant.
Who the hell was she? Why was she here?
She had been only the stuff of hallucinations, but now she was standing in the doorway.
The girl walked through the foyer into the dining room and stopped by the counter. Water dripped from the hem of her slicker and soaked her green sweatpants.
Everyone else in the restaurant seemed to have vanished and it was only her and me.
My hands trembled.
Control yourself, Felix. Don’t let her see you panic.
She had no weapon that I could see. In any other circumstance, a quick bite to her tender neck was the most I’d need to keep her in place. If that didn’t work, I’d use the .45. The advantage was mine.
Her right eye twitched again. She blotted her eye. When she lowered her hand, those eyes were no longer threatening but uncertain and vulnerable.
Her spell on me dissolved, slowly.
I looped a hand around my coffee cup to feel the warmth. The others in the restaurant came back into focus: the two hunters at a booth, the four geriatrics at their table, the bitchy waitress marching by with a carafe.
The girl took a halting step. She looked afraid.
Good. She needed to be afraid of me.
Keep looking tough.
I had to see what this woman was. Human? Supernatural? If so, what kind? What did she want? My hands flinched upward to remove my contacts but I hesitated. Too many witnesses.
The girl leaned from one foot to the other as if debating whether to leave or to approach me.
She crossed the floor. Her gaze became fragile. A wrong move on my part and she’d be out the door.
I didn’t dare so much as blink.
She stopped beside my booth. Her eyes were a rich honey brown and shiny with fear. This close, I could see fresh pimples on her chin and in the crease along her left nostril.
A teenager. I’d been terrorized by a teenage girl with bad skin.
She reached for the top of her slicker. Was she going for a weapon?
I crossed my arms and set my elbows on the table. I curled my hands and readied my talons.
Without a word, she unzipped her slicker and took a seat on the opposite side of my booth. Her green sweat top said Morada Panthers in yellow script. Water seeped from the folds of her jacket and puddled around her elbows. Her fingers were red and her knuckles white from the outside cold.
She acted scared of me, yet she had come this close.
What did she want?
She took a deep breath and clenched her fists as if steeling herself for a dangerous jump. Her right eyelid blinked repeatedly, semaphoring her anxiety. She put her hand on her upper cheek to keep the eye still.
I smiled to try and put her at ease. After all, I wasn’t exactly bad company. At least not in public.
The girl said, “Felix Gomez.”
It was the voice that echoed through my hallucinations. It was like a spike had been hammered into my head.
She added, “I know what you are.”
The girl had said what, not who.
The fear returned and my fangs throbbed against the inside of my upper lip.
Her eyes widened as she continued. “You are a vampire.”
CHAPTER 17
The girl’s words lanced through me.
My brain sputtered in bewilderment, my thoughts misfiring, my body shocked into paralysis.
Slowly, my mind found its track and raced toward one thought.
Kill her.
No human except for a chalice could live with the knowledge of the undead.
I readied my arms for a swipe of my talons across her throat. How far out the door could I get before her blood gushed across the table?
I had murder on my face and the girl saw it. Fear spread into her eyes. The color left her face. She recoiled, and when scooting out of the booth, she noticed my talons.
Her eyes turned back to mine and seemed to pulse.
My name echoed in my head.
Felix…ix…ix.
The echo amped up to a rush of noise.
I clutched the table to ground myself.
Not again. Not now. Not here.
The echo increased to a ringing shriek. A thousand needles vibrated against the inside of my
skull. My vision went blurry and turned the world into a grainy fog.
Everything from my jaw to my balls trembled. My kundalini noir quivered like a stick in an earthquake.
Nausea snaked up my throat. Bile pushed over my tongue, bitter and foul.
I started to heave. My arms and legs jerked in spasms. I had the sensation of falling.
My head and shoulder smacked into something hard.
Warm liquid dribbled on my face and chest.
The vibrations stopped. The needles disappeared. The shriek trailed to nothing.
But there was no silence. Someone yelled, a fresh voice that bounced inside my skull. A woman.
“Hey, I asked if you were okay.”
My eyes quit shaking and I focused to get my bearings.
I lay at the bottom of the booth and looked up at the under-side of the table. Pastel clumps of gum clung to the wood. The liquid dripping on me was coffee.
The waitress crouched beside the booth. She yapped like an angry terrier. “You told me you were okay. Now I find you on the floor about to toss your cookies. You on drugs?”
The bile seeped back down my throat.
“You hear me? Are you on drugs?”
I felt dizzy and sick. “No, I’m not on drugs.”
“Then quit acting like you are.”
I pushed from the floor and crawled onto the bench. Puddles of coffee rolled across the vinyl upholstery and wet my trousers.
The girl remained at the edge of the booth, frozen, her eyes huge.
She showed no fear that I was a vampire. Some, upon meeting us, turn away and shriek in terror. Others are drawn as if a vampire was what they’d been waiting for all their lives. Still others, like this girl, accepted us vampires with guarded fascination.
Why was she the same girl from my hallucinations? Did she project the psychic signals? Or was she misdirection about the true source?
I sat upright, slowly, to let my head clear.
The waitress picked my coffee cup from the floor. She walked off, grumbling. “If you’re sick, the county hospital is up the road. I’m not cleaning up any vomit.”
One of the hunters paused in the act of devouring a monster burrito. Red chile sauce dribbled from the mouth in his pumpkin-like head. “Yeah, that was disgusting. I about lost my appetite.” He went back to devouring.
I patted my face and hands with a paper napkin to blot the coffee. Carefully, so I wouldn’t smear my makeup.
The girl slid into the booth. She tilted her head in amazement as if she’d made a great discovery. The line of her mouth became an amused grin as if I was the butt of a joke.
I was drenched inside out with embarrassment. I’d come to Morada strutting my bad vampire stuff and first the zombies smacked me down, then this girl.
Our waitress came back with a towel. “Tell you what, mister, you take your business elsewhere. Don’t worry about the bill.”
What could I say? I couldn’t make a bigger ass of myself. I tossed a couple of dollars and got up.
The girl stood from the booth and zipped her jacket in a quick, impatient motion. The waitress leaned across the table and wiped as she complained about the meager tip.
The girl and I retreated for the door. We were quiet but hardly inconspicuous.
The four geezers watched in astonished curiosity, the liver spots on their withered skin darkening, their rheumy eyes swimming behind enormous spectacles.
Getting kicked out of the restaurant worked to my favor. With no witnesses, I could act against the girl.
She pulled the hood of her slicker over her head. We stepped into the cold rain.
I needed to learn what she knew about psychic energy and zombies. But more important, was she responsible for my hallucinations?
“Who are you?”
She turned to face me. “Phaedra Nardoni.”
So I had a name. That was a start.
Phaedra continued to the 4Runner. She waited by the front passenger door, her shoulders hunched against the rain. Vapor puffed from her mouth.
How did she know this was my vehicle? How much did she know about me? My talons inched from my fingertips.
Her gaze shot to my talons, then my face. The gleam in her eyes pulsed once in warning, like the hammer of a gun cocked back.
That gleam was enough to make my kundalini noir catch like it was about to feel a stake. She was responsible for the hallucinations. In the restaurant, when I climbed off the floor, the girl acted as if she was as surprised by what happened as I was. If she didn’t know it then, she knew it now. This power—a psychic attack—was her weapon.
At the moment, I had no defense. She could get inside my brain at will. The violation I had known before returned.
I felt myself falling inward again in search for what I could trust, what I could believe, what I could control.
Any hesitation she had when we first met was gone. She stood waiting, defiant with confidence and awareness.
I asked, “You’re Gino’s cousin?”
“Yeah. He told me about you.”
I sorted through my questions. How much did he say? What about the zombies? Did she know about them?
But first, “So where is he?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I came to the restaurant looking for him.”
A gust of wind sprayed rain into our faces. I let the water drip. Phaedra wiped her cheeks.
She stamped her feet. “It’s cold. Let’s get in your truck already.”
I needed to remove my contacts and confirm what kind of creature Phaedra was. I’ve run across humans with supernatural abilities before but none compared with Phaedra’s. I had one weapon in reserve. Once alone, in private I would zap her and it would be my turn to mess with her head.
I eased close to unlock her door. A sniff didn’t detect the smell of anything undead or unusual.
My nose cataloged the aromas: the wet fabric and plastic of her clothes; the fragrance of moist hair with perfumed shampoo and conditioner; the scent of a flowery deodorant threaded with her perspiration and the rich, intoxicating bouquet of female pheromones.
She wasn’t vampire. Or zombie. Despite her psychic powers, Phaedra seemed very human.
We got in and buckled up. Phaedra fumbled with the right pocket of her slicker and drew a pint bottle of water. She pulled at the pour top and chugged a long swallow.
This was the first time I’ve been this close to a girl her age since I was a boy her age. I wallowed in the forbidden sensuous delight of her tempting adolescence.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Sixteen.”
Sixteen. The number sliced into me like a piece of shrapnel. If the girl in Iraq had been twelve, she’d be Phaedra’s age by now. Had she lived.
But Phaedra was not the girl I had killed in Iraq. Why did her face keep showing up in the hallucinations? Did it have to do with the psychic signals tapping the guilt inside of me, the guilt I’ve been yoked with since I helped kill the Iraqi girl? A guilt that had resurfaced and festered since I’ve lost Carmen?
Here was Phaedra, another woman careening into my life. We sat alone in my Toyota, the metal and glass cocoon a shelter from casual voyeurs.
She put her hand on mine, her warm touch inviting. There was a tiny quiver in her fingertips, yet she wasn’t afraid. Phaedra’s large brown eyes remained guarded but inquisitive.
Her fingers clasped my wrist. I could’ve broken free but remained transfixed, wondering about this mysterious young woman.
“What do you want, Phaedra?”
“It’s simple. You have to keep me from dying.”
CHAPTER 18
Phaedra was dying? And she needed my help?
I said, “I don’t understand.”
“You’re a vampire, right?”
My fangs sprouted to combat length. My muscles tightened like springs.
Phaedra’s eyes locked and loaded. Don’t mess with me.
I didn’t need another psychic brain scr
amble. The murderous vampire routine wasn’t working, so I bent the rule about having to immediately kill her for knowing about the undead.
I gave a parting flash of my fangs as they retracted. “Yes, I am a vampire.” I motioned from her head to my mine. “What about you? Where does that mind power thing come from?”
“I don’t know. No one but you believes that I have it.”
The Araneum knew about psychic signals. Perhaps the zombies did as well. “Trust me, I believe you.” Had she discussed this with someone else? “I’m not the only one you’ve talked to about this?”
She replied, “That’s right. I’ve been in therapy for my hallucinations.”
Therapy? Hallucinations?
Phaedra reached into the left pocket of her slicker and pulled out a couple of small plastic bottles, one white, the other amber. “These are my meds.”
Wads of bills tumbled from her pocket. She scrambled to catch them with a clumsy, embarrassed grab.
I scooped the bills that had fallen over the center console. The bills were twenties and a hundred.
She took the money from me and shoved it back into her pocket. “It’s my…allowance.”
Quite a hefty allowance. The hesitation in her voice told me there was more about the money she didn’t want to explain.
I took the bottles of meds. The prescription label on the white bottle said: Haloperidol tab .5 mg. The label on the amber bottle: Nortriptyline cap 25 mg.
I returned the bottles. “What is the problem?”
Phaedra dropped the bottles in her pocket and snapped the flap. “The meds are for hallucinations and mood swings. And spasms.” She pointed to her twitching right eye. Next she extended both hands and the fingertips showed a slight tremble. “I have Huntington’s chorea.”
“I left my medical dictionary at home. You better explain.”
“Basically, my brain is rotting from the inside out.” Phaedra said this with less emotion than I’ve heard from others complaining about a broken fingernail. “It’s hereditary. My mother died of it when she was thirty-two.”
“You seem calm about it. If I had this disease, I’d be shitting my pants.”
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