“C’mon,” he said. “We got a war to fight.”
***
Chapter Forty-one
I followed Coyote as he levered up the trail on his crutch—step, crutch, step, crutch. Jolie and Carmen joined ranks with me and then gave the same curious look. No welcome back? No pleased to meet you, Carmen?
I shrugged. Welcome to Coyote’s world. For the last few days our worried thoughts kept circling back to him, and I had hoped for a more enthusiastic reunion.
“It was good to see you, too,” I said.
Coyote acted oblivious to my comment—step, crutch, step, crutch. His shirt and jeans were a baggy fit around his skinny arms and legs. A white bandage covered his left leg from knee to foot. Graying hair curled from under a greasy ball cap. He looked like a convalescing scarecrow. Step, crutch.
His aura plumed around him, a megawatt flame of yellow and orange. Phaedra or Carmen would’ve been able to spot him from the moon.
“Carmen,” I said, “with your new psychic powers, how could you let him sneak up behind us?”
She furrowed her brow and confusion streaked through her aura. “I was wondering the same thing.”
We hustled to catch Coyote as he continued—step, crutch, step, crutch. I cradled the Thermos in the crook of one arm. His aura began to dim and shrink. By the time he’d gone ten paces, it had faded to nothing. I mean completely gone, as in zilch, as in what you’d expect from a week-old cadaver. The crows had muted their auras in a similar fashion.
Coyote gimped over the ruts and rocks in the mesa trail. With every new step, his aura returned until it was as bright as before.
I stifled an amazed chuckle. His trick answered my question about how he had managed to get the drop on us. I thought back to our arrival in Blossom’s flying saucer and the moment when the psychic ray had quit tracking us. “Coyote, it was you who interfered with the psychic ray, wasn’t it?”
His aura sprouted dozens of bulbs that flashed like the frenzied lights on a slot machine when it hit the jackpot.
“Okay, so it was you,” I said. “How did you stop the tracker? What did it look like? Where were they?” Coyote could give us plenty of details about Cress Tech’s equipment and tactics.
The bulbs morphed into words that scrolled around the perimeter his aura. LATER VATO The letters reached the bottom of his aura and vanished.
“Is he always this … weird?” Carmen asked.
“This is nothing,” I cautioned. “In a world where everyone wants black-and-white answers, Coyote finger paints in Technicolor.”
She gave him an appreciative look. “That’s not so bad.”
“Don’t encourage him.”
Jolie asked, “Where’s Rainelle?”
“En el chante.” Coyote hobbled off. Step, crutch.
“What?” Jolie asked.
“His home,” I translated.
“Did Rainelle nurse you back?” Jolie asked.
“No.” His aura darkened. “My mother did.”
“Did she conjure some fancy juju to fix your leg?” Carmen asked.
“It’s not fixed yet.”
“But you’re up and around.”
“Es verdad.”
“Then what?” Carmen persisted.
Coyote paused and his shoulders sagged. “She did help, but in a way true to her character.”
Carmen started, “What do you—”
He cut her off. “Once La Malinche, always La Malinche.”
“I don’t follow.”
Coyote tilted his neck back and stared at the night sky. “She cut a deal to save me. A very bad deal.”
My thoughts raced ahead to what he meant. My kundalini noir chilled and before I could manage a word, he said, “My mother betrayed you three like she had betrayed the Aztecs and the Toltecs. The Zapotecs. The Mayans. If you know my mom, she’ll eventually double-cross you.” His aura formed a peak that separated into a knife. It flew over his head and plunged into his back.
“What was the deal?” Jolie asked.
“If Phaedra kept me from dying, my mother would show her how to use the Sun Dagger.”
“That’s how Phaedra first reached Blossom and then us,” I said. “Now that she’s learned how to navigate the psychic plane, she can run amok throughout the galaxy.”
“The deal cut both ways,” Carmen noted. “Phaedra actually helped us out. It was her attack on D-Galtha that led to our escape. Don’t forget that until Phaedra attacked, the Nancharm were going to fillet you.” Carmen pointed at me.
Coyote shook his head as if her explanation didn’t matter. Then he walked away—step, crutch, step, crutch.
“So where is she?” I asked.
“Who?” he replied.
Carmen said, “Doña Marina,” while I answered, “Phaedra.”
“My mother, quién sabe? Phaedra, on the way here. Which is why we must hurry. Less talking. More walking.” Step, crutch, step, crutch.
A million questions remained, but if Coyote was done talking, no point in asking. I uncapped the Thermos and took a swallow of the warm coffee-blood mix. Carmen snagged the Thermos from my hand and gulped heartily. Jolie was next and she returned the Thermos to me, empty.
Coyote reached the crest of the mesa and disappeared from view. Jolie, Carmen, and I marched after him. When we topped the summit, all three of us abruptly stopped.
Coyote ambled between two skin-walkers. The hides on their bizarre sawhorse frames rippled as if from a breeze the rest of us couldn’t feel. Their long, angular heads dipped to track our approach.
“Skin-walkers,” I explained.
“I know what they are,” Carmen snapped.
“They seem calm enough,” Jolie offered. “The only reason they would be here is to guard Rainelle and in that case, I’m guessing she’s okay.”
Coyote step-crutched to his doublewide. Light glowed from a porch light and through the curtains and blinds.
The skin-walkers pawed the ground with their club-like front feet. They projected a vibe that said they could stomp us to pieces.
A crow fluttered overhead and joined a line of others on the roof of the doublewide.
“What’s with the crows?” I asked.
“It’s their fight too, ese,” Coyote replied.
By that I figured they would help by scouting for Phaedra and her minions. Beyond that, I didn’t know what else the crows could do other than shit on her head.
Che trotted out from under the doublewide. Coyote halted momentarily to scratch the dog’s head.
Backpacks and camping gear lay in piles around the front porch. I had no idea where this stuff had come from but guessed that Coyote had probably raided a Boy Scout camp.
His crutch rapped against the wooden porch steps. The kitchen door clicked and was pushed open.
Rainelle stepped out, barefoot, her short hair spiked up. She wiped her hands on an apron and held the door ajar with an ankle. Her round face beamed. “Jolie, Felix, you’re back. Hope you’re hungry.” She said this as if we had just returned from a trip into town.
Coyote step-crutched past her and into the doublewide.
Carmen climbed onto the porch. Rainelle tilted her head and arched an eyebrow. “You must be …” She extended a hand and exclaimed, “Caramella.”
“Actually it’s Carmen.”
“I was close.” She clasped Carmen’s waist and drew her in for a bear hug. “Coyote told me all about you.”
Carmen pulled free. “He did, did he? And what did he say?”
Rainelle rolled her eyes. “That you are bien caliente. Muy pecosa.” Rainelle tapped her temple. “And smart, too.”
Carmen grinned. “I’ll take that.”
Rainelle pressed her meaty hip against the door. “Come in. We have a treat for you.”
Jolie and I followed Carmen and we sauntered through a rich aroma of young pheromones.
Jolie sniffed the air. “What’s on the menu?”
Rainelle blushed. “It was Coyote’s
idea.”
We were in trouble.
We turned the corner into the hall and toward the living room. An assortment of teenage boys lay stacked on each other like harvested timbers. Bony legs jutted from green cargo shorts. Hiking boots covered the feet. Socks sagged around their ankles. Pimply faces rested cheek-to-jowl. Most wore khaki shirts decorated with cloth badges. Coyote had raided a Boy Scout camp and not for the gear.
I groaned in despair.
“Don’t give me that,” Coyote said. “They came out here for communing with nature and all that. We’re nature. Let the communing begin.” He tapped his crutch against the sole of a boot. Rainelle stepped forward, grabbed that boy’s ankles and yanked him out of the pile. He thumped against the carpet and laid still, a blissful expression pasted on his peach-fuzz mug.
So we dined on the necks of the free range, catch-and-release Boy Scouts until our auras simmered in contentment.
Rainelle brought me the Marlin carbine and the cartridge belt. “El Cucuy left this for you.”
I checked the carbine to make sure it was loaded. It was. This extra firepower would’ve been handy on D-Galtha when Phaedra had attacked.
Jolie and I dragged the boys out and loaded them in Rainelle’s pickup. I asked Coyote how he had collected the scouts considering his lame leg.
“It’s the land of enchantment, ese,” he answered cryptically.
We heaped the backpacks and gear on top of the scouts. Jolie climbed in the cab with Rainelle and drove off to dump the troop a safe distance away.
I returned inside the doublewide. Coyote and Carmen studied a map stretched flat on the coffee table. She rested on her knees with her elbows anchored on the table. Coyote sat in the armchair. He grimaced and massaged the calf of his injured leg.
I took a knee beside Carmen. “We need to hash out a strategy for Phaedra.”
Carmen nodded without looking up. “We should let Phaedra come to us.” She tapped a finger in Chaco Canyon. “This way.”
“What’s to keep her from using a portal and popping up on top of the mesa? Catch us from behind.”
“The skin-walkers.”
I chuckled derisively. “She beat the Nancharm.”
“Difference is, the skin-walkers have home-field supernatural advantage.”
“Vato,” Coyote interrupted, “you have doubts about their powers, why don’t you fuck with them?”
I raised my hands. That won’t be necessary. “Why would the skin-walkers help us?”
“They won’t. They’ll be protecting Rainelle.”
“So our back is covered.”
Carmen nodded.
I looked at Coyote. “Maybe now you can tell us how you stopped Cress Tech and their psychic ray?”
He smiled. “It was as easy as taking a piss.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Would the guards care about a coyote? That is, until he peed on their generator. Had to make it real quick or I would’ve fried my chilito lindo.”
“How did you manage that with your bad leg?” I asked.
“You’ve never seen a three-legged dog?” he answered. “Try catching one of those fuckers.”
I leaned across the table. “What did the psychic ray look like? Who was there? It is important to know if there were government agencies present with Cress Tech. CIA. NSA. DOD. Homeland Security.”
“Good point. Which brings me to …” Carmen planted a fingertip on the highway we had taken here and lifted her gaze to Coyote. “We ran into a vampire at a Border Patrol check point.”
The penumbra of Coyote’s aura formed question marks. He leaned from the chair and stared at the location under Carmen’s finger. “Que?”
I explained what had happened. “Do you have any idea who that vampire was? Or who she is with?”
Coyote frowned and the question marks morphed into exclamation marks that dissolved like smoke.
“Hold that thought,” Carmen announced. She sat straight and her aura brightened. “We have visitors.”
I readied the carbine. My fangs dropped into attack position. What a time for Jolie to be gone.
Carmen tiptoed to the window and parted the blinds. Carbine at the ready, I peeked over her shoulder. The porch light shined on a Ford Sport Trac parked out front. Two vampires, a male and a female, stood beside the SUV, their bodies swaddled in orange auras. They were looking to their left. Footfalls brushed against the porch. I counted two sets, another pair of vampires I was certain but from this angle I couldn’t see who.
Carmen’s aura relaxed. She whispered, “Stay cool.”
Someone knocked on the kitchen door. Coyote rose to his feet and step-crutched toward the kitchen. He motioned with a nod that Carmen should answer.
I kept enough distance from her to use the Marlin. She opened the door.
Two vampires waited just beyond the threshold, auras burning not with menace but with anxiety. Both were tall, but the shorter and more muscular of the two stood closest. And both were black.
And I knew them.
The beefier guy was Antoine Speight, who I had last seen in a South Carolina swamp after we lost Carmen to the aliens. He’d run off when a flying saucer landed to arrest the alien gangster who was in on the plot to kidnap Carmen. The lanky vampire was King Gullah, the head of the nidus in Charleston. He had sold me out to the werewolves in order to keep a supernatural war from breaking out.
Antoine gave a measured smile. “May we come in?”
***
Chapter Forty-two
I hadn’t seen Antoine Speight or King Gullah in years and in both cases, their parting remarks to me should have been, So long, sucka. But that was long ago, and the way the glint of their auras slipped from unsettled to hopeful told me to get ready for a three-way bro-hug.
Though they were both dressed in denim, Antoine looked ready for action in his faded jeans, a matching shirt that bunched around his muscles, a Chicago Cubs ball cap, and suede work boots. Gullah wore a trim designer jacket, the cuffs turned back and the front unbuttoned to show off a gold-lamé shirt. A heavy gold chain glistened below his throat. Sharp creases ran down the front of his jeans, tailored so they broke just right across the tops of his shiny cowboy boots, gold-tipped of course. A short-brimmed fedora sat on his head. He looked in prime ghetto-player mode except that he was missing the crystal-knobbed cane he always carried back in Charleston.
I stepped around Carmen. “Antoine. King Gullah. Get your asses in here.” I beckoned them inside and scanned the night beyond them. The two vampire guards by the Sport Trac waved. I didn’t see the skin-walkers and guessed they had left to watch over Rainelle.
But neither Antoine nor Gullah moved. They remained rooted in place, and their auras dimmed to a simmer of worry.
Antoine said, “We can’t stay.”
His reply surprised me. I had so many questions volley through my mind that I couldn’t pick one. Why can’t you stay? Why are you here? Where have you been? What are you doing in this war? And most ominously, whose side are you on? My finger curled around the trigger of the Marlin.
Carmen crowded against me in the doorway.
Antoine’s gaze shifted to her. “I’m glad you’re back.” His remark revealed that he knew about her recent history. I had met him through Carmen and figured the two must’ve been business partners with benefits. Her lips twitched with a slight, hesitant smile. The last time they’d seen each other was just before her abduction by the aliens, so I was sure Antoine’s presence brought a lot of memories, pleasant and painful. Their auras prickled until each of their penumbras got fuzzy and rippled with misgivings. The moment stretched awkwardly.
Coyote step-crutched behind Carmen and me. “A la madre, close the door already. The welfare barely pays for food. You think I got money to air-condition the goddamn atmosphere?”
“That ancient wreck of a bloodsucker is Coyote?” Gullah asked, amused.
“So you’ve heard of him?” Carmen replied. “Then you should be awa
re that he knows more about the supernatural than the four of us put together. I suggest you show some respect.”
Antoine introduced himself and Gullah. Coyote replied with an unimpressed snort.
Gullah said to Carmen, “Antoine’s told me about you.”
Carmen folded her arms. “While I know shit about you.”
“An oversight that will be corrected in due time. But I’m not here on a social call.” He tapped Antoine on the shoulder. “We’re with the Blood Force.”
“Blood Force?” I asked.
“The vampires united against Phaedra,” he explained. “At least those of us willing to fight.”
“Which aren’t many,” Antoine said, “Most vampires are lying low, waiting to see who wins. They’ll pledge allegiance to the victor.”
“I pledge allegiance …” Coyote began. We turned toward him. He stood erect, the crutch tight against his leg like a rifle, his right hand over his heart. He continued, “to that desgraciada hija del demonio.…” The top of his aura flattened into a rectangle that fluttered like Old Glory in a breeze. He lowered his hand and relaxed against the crutch. The flag dissolved. “What pendejo would ever serve Phaedra?”
“You’d be surprised,” Gullah replied. “Plenty of undead bloodsuckers weren’t happy with the Araneum.”
“You included?” I glanced to his left hand, specifically to the stub of his pinkie. As the head of the Charleston nidus, Gullah had gotten lax about his duties. To keep his post, the Araneum demanded that he reaffirm his pledge of loyalty by asking that he cut off his little finger yakuza-style and send it via messenger crow. He had plenty of reasons to buck loose of their undead reins.
“Me included,” Gullah admitted. He clenched his fist to hide the missing digit. “And it was a mistake. Phaedra is one psychotic and paranoid bitch. She culled through the older vampires and killed the ones who didn’t toe the line. She turned vampire against vampire and has even enlisted the blunt tooths into her army.”
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