She didn’t think Castillo really expected this crime to be solved and the vampire, in all likelihood, was already out of the city.
She felt bad for the mother of the girl, who was probably hearing about her daughter’s murder right about now—she’d told the young, surly officer to see about that.
Ana wondered what she would do if Marisol did not show up one morning.
Don’t think that, she scolded herself.
Ana turned and looked at the corner where she kept a table with a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe on top of it, along with a plastic image of San Judas Tadeo and her mother’s rosary.
Mexico was going to hell. It was hell. If she’d had any money she’d have left the country. Somewhere nice and quiet, without vampires and drug dealers. But she didn’t.
Ana pressed a hand against her forehead and wondered what gang the vampire belonged to. The shark didn’t sound familiar. But the bite marks did. She could bet this was the work of a Necros. She’d seen bites like that in Zacatecas and had learned to recognize the telltale signs of several vampire species.
The Necros, with its strong mandibles and big, sharp teeth, was easy to identify. The Tlāhuihpochtli left fewer, smaller marks—smudges blooming on the neck and wrists. Only once had she come upon a Revenant and it had scared the hell out of her. The thing … it had … it was … And the victim. Like a mummy, the flesh shrunken and the body twisted. The devil’s work.
She rolled away from the shrine to the Virgin and closed her eyes, hoping for a restful sleep, but the image of the dead girl flickered behind her eyelids, superimposed like a negative.
* * *
Ana woke up far too tired. Vampires drained you one way or another. She rose from bed and found Marisol in the kitchen, frying an egg.
“Hey, are you back from school early?” she asked.
“No,” Marisol said. “You’re up late. You were supposed to cook dinner.”
“I’ll make dinner now.”
Ana extended her arm to open the refrigerator, but Marisol shook her head. Her mouth was doing that thing where she wasn’t quite smirking but it was damn close.
“There’s no vegetables. There’s nothing. You haven’t gone to the supermarket.”
“No, we went.”
Ana opened the refrigerator and stared at a solitary avocado, a bit of parsley, the wedge of cheese with a dab of mold on it.
“Told you,” Marisol said. A full smirk now.
Ana grabbed a can of diet soda and did not bother pouring it in a glass. It would only mean one more glass to clean. There was already a pile of dishes waiting in the sink. “I need to buy a new school uniform,” Marisol said as she flipped her egg with the plastic spatula.
“What’s wrong with your current uniform?” Ana asked.
“It’s not the official uniform.”
Ana sipped her soda, shaking her head. “It’s got green and blue squares on the skirt and a blue sweater. How is that not official?”
“You know very well the nuns want me to wear the one they sell at the school shop. Not a cheap copy,” Marisol said, sounding like Ana had sent her to school dressed in a paper bag instead of real clothes.
Ana put the soda can down on the kitchen counter. “Well, the nuns can go piss themselves, Marisol, the school manual doesn’t say it’s mandatory that we buy it there.”
“The other kids can tell it’s a knockoff.”
Once again Ana regretted having enrolled Marisol in a private Catholic school. The school fees were outrageous. But public school was no good, with the teachers always on strike and the lousy facilities. Marisol needed a private school so she could have the best teachers, a chance to learn a second language, to make something of herself. Employers advertised jobs in Mexico by specifying the age and even goddamn school a kid had to have graduated from. No students from the UNAM, no one over thirty-four, no married people, no kids, send a photograph, and indicate religion. Under those fucking circumstances you had to try to give your child an edge or they were going to be trampled upon by the richer kids from the Tec or the Anahuac; kids who had lighter skin, heavier wallets, and the right last names. No, Marisol needed this high school. If only Ana could afford it. Money was tight.
“I bet you’re not going to let me go on the class trip to Acapulco, either,” Marisol said as she tossed the egg on a plate and handed it to Ana. Then the girl cracked another egg and began frying it.
Ana leaned against the refrigerator and held the plate in one hand. “I don’t have the money.”
“You could ask Dad.”
As if that would help. Ana was supposed to receive alimony, but any cash from her ex-husband was sporadic and unpredictable. He had remarried and he had a new family; he didn’t trouble himself with the old one. Ana was grateful for this, since it meant he had stopped nagging her about moving back to Zacatecas so he could see his daughter. If she started complaining about the alimony he might start talking about that again, a topic Ana felt no desire to revisit.
“Your father won’t be able to help. This is not a field trip. It’s a glorified party, and I’m not paying so you can go get drunk on a beach. Plus, it’s the state with the highest concentration of vampire cartels. There are half a dozen different families disputing territory there. No damn way you are headed into that Necros nest.”
“Really, Mother? It’s the same everywhere.”
“No.” Ana shook her head again. “It’s not the same everywhere. There’s no vampire cartels chilling in Mexico City.”
“You yourself have told me that the gangs—”
“The human gangs are not going to leave you in an alley with your throat torn out,” she replied, slamming her plate against the kitchen counter.
Marisol looked at her. Ana recognized the same defiant stare she saw each morning in the mirror, the same hooded eyes and thin mouth. Marisol was a younger version of Ana, and this troubled her. She didn’t want her daughter to be like her, to make the same stupid mistakes.
“Look, Marisol, we just can’t afford it. All right?”
Marisol nodded. She had finished cooking her egg and turned off the stove. “Eat up. It’s getting cold,” her daughter muttered.
CHAPTER
9
The house was in the Colonia Roma, where Domingo seldom ventured. The Roma had been a fine area since the time when people rode carriages and ladies wore corsets. It was no longer aristocratic—the super wealthy lived in walled-off complexes or the newer Polanco and Lomas neighborhoods; yet it retained plenty of its grandeur and tradition, showcasing its history in its wide avenues, its parks, its boulevards, and a number of elegant old houses, very European. It was, nowadays, morphing into a hipster haven. The grungy elements of the area paired well with the bookstores, antique shops, art galleries, cafés, and restaurants with far too pricey items on the menu. A latte always went down better when you could pat yourself on the back and declare yourself très chic because you were having a snack at a butcher shop turned trendy eatery, right smack in front of a street where prostitutes lined up in the evenings to engage in their daily trade.
It was a place for sophisticated older people and hip young ones, with magnificent trees and faded mansions, a taco stand here and there to remind you it was not quite the Belle Époque and you were still in Mexico City. It was not a place for Domingo, who preferred the downtown crowds, the pressure of people in the subway, the underpasses and alleys. There were too many private security guards walking around the Roma, who were eager to stop a young man in a cheap yellow jacket. They stared as he walked by, but if Domingo had learned a lesson in his short life it was to keep walking and stare straight ahead. The private security guards couldn’t arrest him, anyway. They could beat him if they didn’t like the look of him, but that was about it.
Domingo kept his head down and walked with his hands in his pockets as he checked the address again. It took him a while to find the house because the number was half-hidden behind a layer of graffiti. It was o
ne of those old colonial houses that seemed like it would stand forever, braving earthquakes and pollution. The gate—an iron double-door—was rusty with age. The place looked abandoned. This was not entirely unusual. Yes, the area was now fashionable and gentrified, but there were houses here and there that had gone to hell in the ’80s and never recuperated, some of them occupied by upper-class squatters—university students and artists with proletarian leanings—and others by the regular, run-of-the-mill squatters who had never read Marx and did not give a fuck about globalization talk.
He wondered if he was at the wrong address. Domingo gave the gate an experimental push. It swung on its hinges, groaning a welcome. He closed the gate behind him and walked down a small inner courtyard, past a fountain decked with chipped blue tiles and to the door of the house itself.
The door seemed terribly heavy, like the door of a castle. Well, what he imagined a castle door might be like. The closest he’d ever gotten to a castle was the Castle of Chapultepec, and he was pretty sure that didn’t count because it was a museum.
He’d never seen a door knocker except in horror movies, but there was one, a heavy iron ring, which he slammed against the wood. He waited, staring at the fountain, which was filled with dirty, murky water and an abundance of leaves. Several pots overflowing with wilted plants sat by the fountain. A couple of them were cracked and earth had oozed out.
An old woman opened the door, her white hair pulled back in a bun. She squinted at Domingo.
“I’m looking for Bernardino,” he said, reaching into his pocket and showing the woman the jade bead Atl had given him. “Atl, Daughter of Centehua, sends me.”
The woman nodded and let him in.
Domingo had spent nights sleeping in old, abandoned houses or in tenements that had stood for more than a century. Many of these places were humid, dark, and unpleasant. However, as he followed the old woman in, toward a staircase, he thought he had never been in a place this cold.
Not only was it chilly, it was dirty too. Yet in the dirt, he noticed things that looked like the genuine article. Antiques. Pricey shit. Cool-looking furniture. Tea sets in a glass case. But there was also a lot of garbage: hundreds of newspaper pages with solved crossword puzzles, plastic toys that came free with fast-food meals, books covered with mold, broken watches, a very large TV set from another era with a crack running down its screen.
A dozen dolls sat on a wall, lined up in their white dresses, wearing matching lace hats. Their blue and green and brown eyes seemed to follow him as he climbed the steps.
There was, once more, the faint smell of mold and the stronger smell of cat piss.
When they reached the second floor, the darkness of the hallway hit him like a wave. He slowed down, afraid to run into a piece of furniture. The old lady did not say anything. She did not offer to turn on the lights, but merely waited a few paces ahead of him.
Domingo continued walking, careful to keep a hand on the wall just in case he should trip. They reached a door and she opened it. It was very dark inside. A darkness thicker than in the hallway.
Domingo swallowed. He clutched the jade bead, then slipped inside the room.
He saw nothing.
“Who sends you?” asked a voice in the darkness. It was a wonderful voice, rich, strong, like the voice of a radio announcer. A very fine voice that enunciated each word with a slight accent.
There was the kiss of a match being struck and then light bloomed. He saw an oil lamp next to the dim figure of a man sitting on a couch. The man rose and began walking around the room. He lit another oil lamp, lit candles. The darkness began to recede, and Domingo saw more bits and pieces: a rug, two cats—no, three. No, four. A lot of cats in the room. Faded paintings decorated the walls and thick velvet curtains hid the windows.
“Atl,” Domingo said. “Daughter of Centehua. She sends me.”
“I do not know Atl.”
“She gave me something for you.”
The man lit two more candles. Domingo saw him properly now. The man was wrapped in a frayed crimson robe, leaning against a cane. He had a great lump on his back. A hunchback. His skin seemed … thin, almost translucent. His eyes, when he glanced at Domingo, were a dim, sickly yellow. He looked old, rather ugly.
“Show me.”
Domingo stepped forward and opened his hand, the jade bead resting upon his palm. The man stretched out his thin, bony fingers and picked up the bead, holding it up.
“The Iztac clan. Tlāhuihpochtin,” the man said. “The first vampires in Mexico, did you know that?”
“Yes,” Domingo replied, and then, before he could stop himself he spoke again. “Are you a Revenant?”
Domingo’s knowledge of vampires was fragmented; the Necros were the ones who appeared most often in popular culture. But the silhouette of the Revenants was distinctive, with their crooked spines, and though he’d seen only a couple of drawings of them he remembered that telltale detail.
The vampire smiled, pocketing the bead. “Most definitely.” He pointed to an overstuffed leather chair. “Please sit.”
Domingo did. There was a toy wooden horse in a corner. He noticed a pile of newspapers by the man’s chair and these also had crosswords that had been solved. He had the crazy desire to go through the stuff. It was the garbage collector in him, eager to find empty bottles and secret treasures. He stilled himself, resting his hands in his lap, trying to keep himself from repeatedly tapping his foot. He was nervous.
“I thought there weren’t any vampires living in Mexico City,” Domingo said.
“This house was built during the reign of Santa Anna, more than a hundred and fifty years ago. It was the time when he was imposing great taxes. Taxes for dogs. Even taxes for breathing. He taxed you by the number of windows and doors your home had. People bricked their windows and their doors. But I didn’t mind. It was good for me.
“Then came the Revolution. You could hear the cannon in the distance. I remember the smell of charred corpses drifting in under the door. A great quake hit in ’85. Half the Roma fell to pieces. But not this house. Not this one.”
The vampire placed his hands atop his cane and stared at Domingo.
“This is my home. It will always be my home. There are too many noises outside, too many cars and smells and people, but not here.”
“I wouldn’t want to move, either. You have cool stuff. What’s that thing over there?” Domingo asked.
The vampire looked over his shoulder. “One of my phonographs.”
“What does it do?”
“It plays music. It’s very old. Would you like to listen to it?”
“Sure.”
The vampire shuffled toward the machine. Domingo thought the contraption looked like a box with a gigantic flower or a big trumpet sticking out of the top. It had a delicate handle, which Bernardino pulled. Music began to stream from the phonograph.
Domingo listened with interest as the recording hiccupped and played. The vampire was smiling. His teeth were yellow and very large.
“Have you ever thought of selling it?” he asked.
The vampire’s smile disappeared. “No,” he said with a finality that made Domingo wince.
The phonograph went quiet and the vampire sat down again. Domingo looked at him, afraid to speak and say the wrong thing. A cat rubbed itself against his legs, purring, almost making him jump out of his seat.
“Here, here,” said the vampire, and the cat left Domingo alone and jumped onto the vampire’s lap.
The vampire propped his cane against the side of his chair and began petting the cat, his thin fingers carefully stroking its fur.
“Your mistress, what’s her name again?”
“My mistress,” Domingo repeated.
The vampire smirked, looking mightily amused. Domingo didn’t like that. He hated feeling like he was the butt of a joke.
“Yes. What was that name?”
“Atl.”
“Beautiful name. Beautiful girl. She must be. Her
mother was a beauty. My kind, well, they are this,” the vampire said, pointing to himself. “Kyphosis, the great ugly hump. But I have my advantages.”
“She sent me because she needs to find someone. She wrote the name down for me.”
Domingo grabbed the crumpled piece of paper and gave it to Bernardino. The vampire looked at it with an easy indifference, nodding.
“Atl has money.”
“She does, does she? She also has a serious case of idiocy,” the vampire said. “I haven’t lived this long to take a bullet for a woman I do not know.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The person she wants will not like being found. And she will know it was me who gave Atl the information. Even worse, Atl wouldn’t come to me unless she were in a dire situation, which I will not speculate about. I refuse to get involved. Tell her that.”
“But you’ve got to help her,” Domingo said, jumping to his feet. “She said it was life or death.”
“Sit down,” the vampire said angrily, lifting his left hand.
Domingo didn’t know how it happened. One second he was standing and then the next his knees buckled and the man was pushing him down back into the leather chair, pressing a hand against his neck. Damn. He was fast.
“She was rather silly to send you,” the vampire said. “What did she think I’d do with you, hmm? Invite you in for tea and cookies? This girl must want you dead.”
She’s my friend, he thought furiously.
The vampire released him and Domingo rubbed his neck.
“A friend,” the vampire said with a chuckle. “A snack, maybe.”
Bernardino picked up a cat and peered down at Domingo.
Domingo stared at the vampire.
“Did you just read my mind?” he asked, shocked that the vampire could actually do that. It seemed more impossible than the other stuff they said about vampires, like turning into bats or mist. Okay, maybe not mist.
“Yes, I read your mind. Pray that’s the only thing I do. I might kill you for coming here, insolent brat. It might teach a lesson to that stupid girl who sends you. What does she think? Who does she think she is? People have begged for my audience, sent gifts and proper letters, there are protocols, and there is tradition, people have…” He trailed off, frowning, as if he’d run out of breath.
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