I studied Coyote, the deep wrinkles on his face and neck, his sunken eyes in their darkened sockets, the way his bony hands appeared made of crooked brittle sticks. Seeing how death gnawed at my friend made me slide into a depressed funk.
Jolie glanced back to the door. “Where’s Rainelle?”
Marina picked up an unlit votive candle from several that stood on a shelf behind her. “She’s getting medicine.”
Jolie tightened her brow. “What kind of medicine?”
Marina ignited a disposable barbeque lighter and lit the candle. Starting a fire—however small—didn’t seem wise in this tinderbox. “Why don’t we trust that Rainelle knows what she’s doing? My son suffered a gruesome wound to his kundalini noir,” Marina explained. “His chi is hemorrhaging. If we don’t stop his life force from draining, he will die.”
She lit all the candles, a total of seven, and arranged them across the shelf. The flickering light dancing across Coyote’s face seemed to animate him.
“Is there any significance to seven candles?” Jolie asked.
Marina grasped a ceramic to-go mug labeled World’s Best Mom and gulped a drink. I smelled scotch. “Certainly,” she answered. “That’s all I could find at the Dollar Store.” She parked herself on a rickety barstool (complete with duct tape) and watched her son. The reflected candles shone as points in her eyes.
A grim solemnity settled across us, a heavy soulful silence that lasted until Marina slurped from her mug.
Jolie looked at her. “How are you doing?”
“Not well.” Marina took a sip. “He’s the last of my babies.”
Coyote as a baby? Well, once, long ago it had been true. Now he appeared decades older than his mother.
“I don’t want Coyote to die.” Marina teetered on the barstool. “So you know, I never drowned any of my babies.”
“I know you didn’t,” Jolie replied.
“In fact, I never drowned anyone.” Marina’s words slurred together. “I just have to go through the motions. Forever. And endure. Eternal damnation sucks.”
The door creaked. Rainelle entered. She carried a wicker picnic basket. She entered, closed the door behind her, and approached us. She set the basket on the table by the foot of the coffin.
Marina slid off the barstool and wobbled a bit. She placed the mug on the shelf and joined Rainelle behind the table. They each grasped a coffin lid that had been resting against the sawhorses and placed it over the coffin, Rainelle at the feet, Marina at the head.
Rainelle moved the basket to the top of the coffin. She reached inside and withdrew corn cobs still in the husks, assorted flower blossoms, and a bundle of sage and desert weeds. Both women silently arranged the corn and blossoms along the top of the coffin.
Marina handed the lighter to Rainelle who lit the sage and weed bundle. The flame shrank to red embers that unwound curls of pungent herbal smoke. Rainelle closed her eyes and waved the smoldering bundle, chanting softly, and stamping her feet. Her ceremony appeared profoundly sincere and magical in spite of her UNM Lobos jersey.
Eyes still closed, Rainelle placed the bundle on the edge of the coffin. She opened her eyes and gazed at the basket. The twists of smoke angled toward the basket and were sucked in.
Something rustled inside. The lid cracked open and out crawled three Kachina dolls, each about a foot tall. All appeared made of gray suede with outsized heads and were decorated with zigzags and stripes of bright colors. They moved in jerky stop-motion, and I had to blink repeatedly to shed my disbelief.
One had deer antlers and carried a staff. Another had a green face, shook gourd rattles, and wore a skirt. The third had a fan of feathers around its head and feathers trailing from its arms like wings.
Jolie whispered, “More Navajo magic?”
“No,” Marina whispered back, “Hopi.”
The lid of the basket lifted and dropped. It boomed like a drum. The lid lifted and dropped again to repeat the sound. Again. And again until a pounding beat filled the shed.
The three dolls rocked and bounced to the rhythm. Slowly at first. Then faster to match the quickening cadence of the drum. They danced on the coffin, circling the basket, kicking, skipping, and pumping their arms. The sound of rattles and bells accompanied the drumming. An ethereal green aura trailed behind each dancer. With every lap around the basket, the auras became denser until they formed one continuous translucent hoop that undulated like a halo of emerald smoke.
Marina had draped a brightly colored shawl over her shoulders. She handed an identical shawl to Rainelle, who placed it around her neck. They turned their backs to Jolie and me and clasped hands. Their auras simmered and fused together.
I nudged Jolie that we should go.
Marina turned her head and beckoned Jolie. “Stay. Coyote has a mother and a wife, but he could use the power of a daughter. You can be that daughter.”
Jolie brightened and put a hand on her chest. Me? Marina handed a new shawl to her. She put it on and walked between the other two women. They joined hands and faced the coffin, their auras blending into a wall of yellow, orange, and red flames.
I stepped forward. “What about a son? That could be me.” A force, like a giant invisible hand, stopped me. When I tried to move, it pushed, insistent until I was walking backwards. The shed door opened behind me, I was shoved through, and I found myself in the yard, bathed in bright sunlight and surrounded by curious goats and chickens. Coyote’s dog Che stared at me.
The dance music echoed out the open shed door. Then the door closed, muffling the sound.
Stung at being excluded, I blinked at the door, mystified by the Hopi ceremony. Just when I thought I’d seen enough weird, something even weirder happens.
I returned to the doublewide and dropped the gun belt on the kitchen counter. After fishing a bag of Type O Negative from the fridge, I searched the pantry for booze, found a bottle of blue corn Don Quixote vodka, and made a cocktail. Carbine on my lap, I plunked down on the sofa and sorted through Coyote’s papers. When my glass was half-empty I topped it off from the bottle. Getting loopy made Coyote’s scribblings start to make sense, so if I got good and ripped, I might be able to decipher his notes.
Soon I was hammered, and Coyote’s writings still made no sense. Stretching out across the sofa, I let the alcohol dilute my misgivings and I drifted into a hazy slumber.
Someone kicked my foot and I was startled awake.
Jolie stood beside the sofa and tapped her boot against the carbine I’d let fall to the floor. She tossed the gun belt onto the sofa. “Some goddamn guard you are.”
I sat up, my head still swimming from the vodka.
She handed me a cup of coffee, which I sipped. It was hot, black, and strong.
“At least you got some shut-eye.” She picked up the Don Quixote and guzzled what little remained in the bottle.
“How’s Coyote?” I could feel the coffee mercifully rearrange the molecules in my brain.
“Hard to say. Rainelle says that even Hopi magic needs time.”
I was getting sober and my fears floated up from my subconscious. I glanced at my watch. 5:22 p.m. “We better get ready to leave soon. At this point, rescuing Carmen is a fool’s errand, but we have to try.”
“Don’t be so glum. Our chances are better than what they were.”
“How so?” My head still wobbled.
“Give it a minute.”
My mind remained too fuzzy to quiz her.
Marina stepped through the back door and into the living room. She had exchanged her red dress for capris tailored like green military fatigues and her pumps for stylish trail runners. Pink pompoms dangled from the backs of the shoes.
I squinted at her. “Where are you going?”
“If my son can’t help, maybe I can.”
She plucked the rubbing of the Sun Dagger from the coffee table and eased into the armchair. She squinted at the picture of the petroglyph, and her large brown eyes roamed over Coyote’s notes. “I thin
k I can get you to D-Galtha. That might be the easy part.”
I might still be boozy but I guessed the hard part. “Don’t tell me th—”
Marina cut me off with a smirk. “You got it. The best I can do is a one-way trip across the galaxy.”
***
Chapter Sixteen
Night would provide cover, so we got ready to leave at dusk, which would give us plenty of time to cross Chaco Canyon and reach the Sun Dagger on schedule.
Jolie and I fortified ourselves with blood and coffee. We cleaned our guns and checked our ammunition to the beat of ’80s hits blaring from the radio. Marina studied her reflection in the mirror as she touched up her make-up and tied and retied a camouflaged bandana around her head.
Rainelle remained in the shed holding vigil over Coyote. When I mentioned earlier that Phaedra might return, Rainelle replied that the native spirits would protect her. I didn’t know what the little dancing Kachinas or the skin-walkers could do, but this was her people’s magic so I left it at that.
The rubbing of the Sun Dagger lay on the coffee table. I’d studied the picture so much that its image was practically etched into my retinas. Assuming the best, we’d arrive on D-Galtha—the easy part according to Marina. But she wouldn’t accompany us. Couldn’t leave Earth, she insisted. A condition of her curse.
Jolie and I would be on our own when it came time to find Carmen on D-Galtha. How? Then return home. How? And what was D-Galtha like? Would the aliens simply let us take her? How effective would our guns be against the extraterrestrials? Maybe we’d be better off bringing flowers and pan dulce.
And then there was Phaedra. Waiting for us now and when we returned. Which raised more questions than what I wanted to mull over.
Marina wore Coyote’s gold Rolex on her wrist. “Let’s go.”
Jolie and I followed her out the back door. Cool night air washed over us. We stared at the shed where Rainelle was with Coyote. I wondered if we should interrupt to say goodbye.
The shed door opened. The ritual dance music spilled forth, the volume low. A green mist rolled over the threshold.
Rainelle walked out, clad in a loose coat and a knit cap. The Kachina with feathers appeared behind her and now it—he?—was as tall as me. He halted at the doorway, watching us, shuffling in place and shaking his arms to the muted rhythm.
Rainelle waded through the green mist to approach us. The door closed, hiding the Kachina and silencing the music. Rainelle looked at me and Jolie. “What’s the plan?”
The answer seemed obvious, but I replied anyway, “Go straight to Fajada Butte.”
“Knowing that Phaedra might be waiting?”
I stroked the carbine. “We’re ready.”
“I’m sure Phaedra is thinking the same thing. Why not throw her a curve and go the back way?” Rainelle dug a set of keys from her coat pocket. “We’ll take my truck and approach from the south.”
That would be on the first road we’d taken to the butte, the one where we’d abandoned the Porsche.
She winged a thumb to the shed. “The Kachinas will take care of Coyote until I return.” She walked to her truck to where it was parked by the gate. She opened the driver’s door. “Pile in, comaradas.”
A bird fluttered overhead and landed on the rain gutter of the doublewide. A crow. A red aura swirled around its body. At the far corner, another tell-tale aura from a crow.
Crows are not nocturnal, so I figured these birds were on a mission for the Araneum. But the Araneum was in tatters. Since I became a vampire, I learned to expect bad news anytime a crow shows up. I studied their ankles for a message capsule but saw none.
“What’s up with the crows?” Marina asked.
Jolie replied, “Maybe they’re wishing us good luck.”
I added, “Or adios.”
Rainelle got in the truck and started the motor. Marina and Jolie squeezed themselves into the passenger’s side. I let the truck out through the gate and climbed into the bed. I sat against the back of the cab and watched the crows as they watched us.
We proceeded to the rim of the mesa. Chaco Canyon yawned before us, a forbidding dark expanse. At this distance, Fajada Butte was but a finger-shaped smudge in the faraway gloom.
Stars filled the immense dark bowl of the sky. To the west, a fading band of blue highlighted the horizon. Pinpoints of light crawled along the distant highway to the faraway towns. The moon just started to rise above the eastern hills.
Rainelle turned on the headlamps and drove the Ford along the edge of the mesa. Our lights fell across the narrow, twisting road gouged across the forbidding rocky slope. Along the way down I bounced like a bead in a rattle. The truck’s springs groaned when we bottomed out at the base of the mesa. Rainelle muscled the Ford along the road to the highway where we turned south. A sign said: Crownpoint 15 miles. Since this was my second trip through these parts, I should have recognized the surroundings, but we were in the middle of high desert that stretched into more high desert. Thirty miles in any direction and it would look the same.
Tonight was our one shot to rescue Carmen, at least in this century. Then if we got her home, we still had Phaedra to contend with. Coyote had said that only Carmen could defeat her. How? In my first dealings with Phaedra, she hadn’t hesitated to use a mind probe to harass me. Now she was quiet. Why?
We turned east on Navajo Service Road 9 and our tires rumbled on the rough pavement. After a few minutes, Rainelle slowed. I peeked around the edge of the cab. A yellow flashing sign blocked the exit toward Fajada Butte. Rainelle flicked the high beams to illuminate the sign.
ROAD CLOSED
Dusk to Dawn
By order Dept of Homeland Security
Area patrolled by Cress Tech Intl.
This was no surprise. We’d tripped their psychotronic alarms twice already so it was about time they sat up and paid attention.
Rainelle drove forward, knocked the sign aside, and followed the road up a shallow incline. A yellow glow flashed on the reverse side of the slope. We topped the crest and saw that the glow came from the hazard lights of a Humvee straddling the road and facing our direction. Search lamps on its roof flicked on, dazzling us. Two silhouetted guards marched into the cone of illumination until they were sandwiched between the search lamps and our headlights. Their red auras burned with irritation.
Rainelle halted fifty feet from the Humvee. She and Jolie climbed out.
Jolie whispered, “Felix, stay down. I’ll handle this.”
One of the guards cradled an assault rifle. The other shouted, “Turn off your headlights! Stay in your vehicle!”
Rainelle and Jolie walked toward them, slowly, arms relaxed at their sides.
The aura of the guard doing the yelling flared with anger. “Stop right there! Couldn’t you read the sign?”
Rainelle answered, “No hablo ingles.”
She and Jolie stopped close to the guards. Jolie mumbled something because both guards turned their heads toward her.
The eyes of one guard widened. His aura flashed like a strobe. Jolie turned to the second guard. His eyes widened and his aura also strobed.
Stunned by vampire hypnosis, the guards swayed like reeds. Jolie approached the first guard, clasped him in her arms and fanged his neck. His aura calmed and Jolie pushed him into the cab of the Humvee. She repeated the procedure with the second guard and returned with Rainelle to the pickup.
Jolie wiped her mouth. “Tasty stuff. Nice notes of bourbon.”
“Could have asked for my help,” I replied.
“Next time.”
They climbed into the truck. Rainelle gunned the engine. She drove around the Humvee and up the road. We shimmied over the washboard, the ride just as jarring as I remembered from our abortive try in the Porsche, but the Ford handled the bumps and ruts like a tank.
Rainelle slowed, and I glanced around the cab. A buck mule deer emerged from the dark murk before us, maybe thirty feet away, eyes blazing. Rainelle halted the truck.
The deer’s body began to flatten while his legs stretched. His eyes shriveled to points and vanished. He morphed into a hide of skin stretched over a framework that resembled a leather tent on stilts. Skin-walker! And probably Yellowhair-Chavez.
His aura shimmered like light reflecting on water. The head was now a simple flap of skin lacking eyes, or mouth, or ears, or anything else. Just a grotesque flap swinging to-and-fro. Behind him, Fajada Butte loomed like a blunt spike.
Rainelle said, “This is far as I can go in the truck,” and we all climbed out. She pointed to the right. “There’s a path that will take you to a gulley that leads to the butte.”
The skin-walker shifted weight and adjusted his long, bony legs. He radiated power like a dynamo.
“Quite a lot of supernatural whoop-ass,” Jolie noted. “I’d give good money to see Phaedra take this fucker on.”
I turned to Rainelle. “Any chance we can persuade him to follow us to Fajada Butte?”
She shook her head. “That’s your fight, not his. He’s here to protect me.” She glanced at the skin-walker and back at us. “Those guards miss their radio checks and someone will come looking. I better go.”
She hugged Marina, then Jolie. I got a wave.
Rainelle got back in her truck. She swung the front end around, tooted the horn, and rumbled south. Van Halen blared from the radio. I looked for the skin-walker and all I saw was a deer sprinting into the night.
Marina said, “There are still miles of desert ahead, but you should get to the Sun Dagger with plenty of time to spare.”
“You’re not coming with us?” Jolie asked.
“I’ll meet you there. You don’t need me to slow you down.”
“What are you talking about?”
Marina smiled. “I’ll see you on top of the butte.” Her body began to fade, becoming transparent, then abracadabra, she vanished.
Jolie and I stared at the empty space. New Mexico was full of surprises.
We proceeded down the path and picked up the pace to a fast jog. The gulley widened into a ravine with a broad, flat bottom. We passed one of the Cress Tech towers, which meant we were a mile from the butte. As far as I knew, the detectors needed a blast of psychic energy to trip the alarm, so our mere presence shouldn’t register. Good. We didn’t need any more interference from the government’s goons.
Rescue From Planet Pleasure Page 11
