Werewolf Smackdown

by Mario Acevedo

  Though he wasn’t a chalice, Lemuel had our trust. He owned the mortuary, which allowed him to operate a bed and breakfast for vampires. He offered the newest coffins and, equally important, privacy. We vampires could relax without troweling on the makeup or risking encounters with nosy humans. Room service was provided by a chalice he had on call.

  His face resembled a ball of old chocolate, dusted white across his cheeks and under his lips, and deep brown around his eyes and nose. He wore a bathrobe cinched over pajamas. Scuffed leather slippers covered his feet. Vapor steamed from an electric teapot on the counter beside him. He sipped from a mug in his hand.

  We nodded to one another in salutation. I kept from zapping him.

  “Who you waiting for?” I asked.

  “You.” He yawned. His aura stayed even, so he wasn’t lying. “Wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

  “How’d you know I’d be coming in now?”

  “Hang around you types long enough, you learn things.” He glanced at the wall clock. “It’s a couple of hours before sunrise. Wasn’t hard to figure out.” He pointed to the teapot and the refrigerator. “Help yourself. I got goat’s blood.”

  “Thanks.” I grabbed a cup from the counter and filled it halfway with the herbal tea. The goat’s blood was in pint jars in a door shelf of the fridge. Each jar was labeled with a date scribbled on a strip of masking tape. I topped off the cup with the freshest blood. The tea-and-blood combination went down warm and agreeable.

  “Lemuel, what do you know about the local werewolves?”

  “I keep my ear to the ground, but I am busy enough taking care of you vampires.”

  I brought up Calhoun and Bourbon. Lemuel said he knew who they were and added, “They stick to their side of the supernatural, and I stick to ours.”

  “How safe do you feel?”

  “Pretty damn safe considering my best clients are vampires.”

  I gave him the big picture, starting with Bourbon’s offer, the vampire attack, werewolf ambush number one, Paxton, my visit with Calhoun, Wendy, and werewolf ambush number two. I trusted Lemuel as much as I could any human, but I kept from him that Wendy was a spy.

  Lemuel sipped from his mug, and when I was done, he went to the teapot and got a refill. “You’ve been a busy man. How long have you been in town?”

  “Since yesterday.”

  “I haven’t had that much excitement since I’ve been back from ’Nam.”

  “Well, I heard Charleston was a happening place. I would’ve preferred to have been disappointed.”

  “And you’re worried about Wendy?”

  “I’m also worried about you.”

  “Me?” Lemuel chuckled. “I’m minding my own business.”

  “Paxton comes after me, he’s certain to run over anyone else in his way.”

  “Does the Araneum know?”

  “I’ll send them an update. Let me use your computer.”

  Lemuel put down his mug. I followed him to his office. He kept the lights off, but no matter, as I could see with vampire vision. It was a simple workspace. A desk and furniture probably bought on sale at Office Depot. Piles of paper crowding a keyboard and a flat-screen monitor.

  I got on his computer and logged onto the antiquarian booksellers Web site, the Sagging Bookshelf. I searched for a first edition of The Van Helsing Encyclopedia of Urban Canines. I clicked on a picture of the cover. This was a secret procedure to indicate I had information about werewolves. A comment box appeared, and I wrote a brief summary about the attacks and Julius Paxton.

  When I clicked the send button, the words turned into strings of cuneiform letters, which jumbled up and fused into one black blob. The comment box disappeared, replaced by the words: Thank You! Your business is appreciated.

  Now to wait for a reply, usually a message delivered by crow. I felt more at ease now that I had alerted the Araneum. I had just me to worry about. And Wendy. And Lemuel.

  After I shut off his computer, he took me to the coffin prep room. The place smelled of contractor’s glue and polyurethane. Lemuel turned on the light and adjusted the brightness to keep it low and soothing.

  My luggage sat beneath a wooden bench. My casket, a Model Norteck 3000 (cherry finish; bronze—not brass—fixtures; silk lining; with custom connections for my iPod and a charger for my cell phone), rested on the bench.

  Lemuel patted my shoulder. “Good night. What’s left of it.” He turned off the light and closed the door.

  Darkness surrounded me like a welcome blanket. The smells grew sharper, the sounds more pronounced. Lemuel’s slippers scuffed the floor as he shuffled to his quarters at the other side of the building.

  I opened my overnighter and changed into my sleeping clothes: black sweat cutoffs and a Chicago Cubs T-shirt. I connected my iPod and cell phone and climbed into the coffin. The silk lining felt cool against the back of my legs. I put my earbuds in and scrolled through my playlist to select tracks featuring Jeff Beck.

  I pulled the lid over me. Sleeping in a coffin helped restore my psychic balance. Living out in the sun and keeping to a daylight schedule wore us vampires out.

  I was glad the werewolves had interrupted my time with Charly. I didn’t want her; I wanted Wendy.

  Where was she?

  With Calhoun. I fought the image of them wrapped around each other, though I was sure there had been plenty of that.

  What about Angela? Was her teasing sincere, or a way to get me to talk?

  Sleep pulled me away. I dreamed of wild women banging on guitars, beating drums, and wailing like horny banshees. They shed clothes at the start of every song in a musical version of strip poker. I was in the audience wondering which of these party girls was my door prize.

  The drummer started missing her rhythm. The beat sounded like rocks tumbling in a clothes dryer. When I was about to complain, I realized that it wasn’t her drumming but someone knocking on the casket lid. Unfortunately, the music and the naked ladies vanished like wisps of smoke in a breeze.

  I opened my eyes, pushed the casket open, and sat up.

  Lemuel stood beside the table. He was dressed in his mortician’s garb—cheap black suit, white shirt, and a polyester tie decorated with a pattern that was someplace between vintage ugly and hand-me-down hideous.

  “You got a visitor,” he said.

  I blinked, bleary and a little groggy. “Who?”

  “Me,” said the visitor at the door. In stepped Eric Bourbon.

  CHAPTER 23

  Bourbon, the treacherous bastard.

  I sat up in the coffin, fangs and talons out, ready to strike. Ready to kill.

  Orange stripes of alarm zigzagged through Bourbon’s red aura. “Whoa, whoa, Count Chocula, settle down.”

  Lemuel stepped between us. “Felix, if Mr. Bourbon had come here looking for trouble, would I have let him get this close without warning you?”

  I tamped down my anger. “What do you need from me?”

  Bourbon said, “I want to talk. You saw Calhoun, and I have to undo his bullshit.”

  I let my talons and fangs retract. “Okay. Gimme a couple minutes to get ready.”

  Bourbon and Lemuel left the room.

  I changed out of my cutoffs and T-shirt, shaved, put on the makeup, and got dressed. Since weres get cranky about vampires reading their auras, I put my contacts in as well.

  Bourbon waited at the small circular table in the kitchen.

  I took a seat opposite him. “How did you find me?”

  “Please, you’re in my town. You want to keep secrets, don’t come to Charleston.” He said this in that lyrical Southern accent, like he was reading poetry when he was really giving me the backhand.

  The forearms of his suit rested on the edge of the table. He remained perched on the front of his chair as if trying his best not to dirty himself with anything in the mortuary. I’m sure werewolves are like vampires in that personalities don’t change much when they cross the boundary from the normal to the supernat
ural world. Assholes are still assholes.

  I warmed myself with coffee mixed with goat’s blood. Bourbon’s nostrils fluttered when I had uncapped the jar of blood. I asked, “You want some?”

  He shook his head, acting embarrassed, like I’d caught him enjoying a guilty pleasure. He idly scratched the back of one hand.

  I said, “Considering that yesterday your werewolves tried to kill Calhoun and me, you got some balls coming around.”

  “Those werewolves didn’t answer to me.”

  “If those werewolves didn’t work for you, then who?”

  “Freelancers.”

  “Acting on whose behalf?”

  Bourbon cleared his throat. “Did you ever think that werewolves from outside of Charleston have their own reasons to make trouble?”

  “Calhoun told me how things work in your big happy hairy family.” My gaze drilled into Bourbon. “You didn’t answer my question. Who did those werewolves work for?”

  “I’ve already told you. Not me.”

  I was going to ask about last night and the two werewolves who had tried to get me outside of Big Jack’s. But I remembered Sean had said to keep the matter between us.

  I took the revolver out of my pocket and laid it on the table. “Another thing—what about this piece of crap?”

  “Why are you complaining? You knew it was junk to begin with.”

  Fair enough. I put the revolver back in my pocket. “You came to talk. Get started.”

  He got up from the table. “I need to show you. Let’s go for a ride.”

  Bourbon and I went out the front of the mortuary. His car, a BMW 530i—I know because Bourbon told me three times—was parked across two spaces. Asshole.

  A crow sat on the edge of the roof of the mortuary. The Araneum used the birds as messengers. I hesitated a moment, waiting to see if the crow approached. It stayed on the roof, watched Bourbon and me get into the BMW, then flew away.

  Bourbon started the car and we proceeded from the driveway. Down the street, a black H2 Hummer pulled in front of us. With its boxy lines and narrow tinted windows, the H2 looked like a bunker on wheels. Behind us, a couple of piranha-like Ducati crotch rockets closed on our rear bumper. The riders wore identical mesh racing jackets and had boom mikes attached to their helmets. The Hummer and Ducatis kept in formation with our BMW. Bourbon acted like he’d expected them.

  “Who’s the company?” I asked “My security detail.”

  I extended my talons. “If this is a double cross, these are the last things you’ll see.”

  “Whatever. Now pull in your nails before you scratch the upholstery.”

  I let my talons retract but kept myself primed for trouble. “Calhoun told me about Inga Latrall and the circumstances of her death. He points the finger at you.”

  Bourbon scowled like the taste in his mouth had gone rancid. “Ask yourself this, Mr. Private Detective, who’s in the better position as a result of her death? I had my disagreements with Miss Latrall, but who’s got his paws on her estate and her money?”

  “Are you saying Calhoun was responsible for the crash?”

  “I’d like to say that, but I have no proof. And neither does he. Remember, Felix, you’re dealing with werewolves. We talk family and loyalty, but we get ahead by ripping each other’s throats.”

  Like Bourbon had said earlier, he wanted to undo Calhoun’s bullshit. Problem was, I didn’t know what was bullshit or what was truth.

  We drove through downtown Charleston and paused along Legare Street. The Hummer and Ducatis stayed close. “Take a look at that.”

  I didn’t know what I was supposed to be looking at. I saw Colonial row houses and bungalows. Lush vegetation—bushes, flowers, magnolias—framed the homes in the vibrant colors of springtime.

  “This”—Bourbon gestured—“is what every upscale community aspires to be. Charleston.”

  Lemuel had warned me about this conceit. SOB. South of Broad Street. The center of the universe. The top of the pecking order. And of course, SOB meant “son of a bitch” as well.

  Technically, Lemuel said he himself was a SNOB, Slightly North of Broad Street, because of his address. Usually that would’ve meant he was in close orbit to the center of the universe. But Lemuel was black. His business catered to the African-American community largely ignored by those more worried about guarding their place on the Charleston social register.

  Bourbon continued down the street and ran his mouth about the preeminence of Charleston above all American cities. I never imagined a werewolf to be so enamored with anything other than a rawhide bone to gnaw on.

  We turned on Lenwood Boulevard and pulled into a driveway beside an antebellum home. The house was the largest on the block—I knew Bourbon wouldn’t settle for anything smaller than a castle—and he kept his running commentary on the real estate (little about the history and much on the costs).

  “Buying the house is the easy part,” he said. “You move here, you’re moving into the oldest and proudest neighborhood in the United States. But there’s a price for owning a piece of history. Keeping your place from falling apart is like raising the Titanic. And changing so much as one screw in an electrical outlet requires approval by a review board.”

  The more Bourbon complained, the more a touch of pride crept into his voice. The bother of having so much money and property.

  We stopped in front of an iron fence. The Hummer halted at the next corner. The Ducati motorcycles paused behind us on opposite sides of the street. Bourbon pulled out his cell phone, and his thumb danced on the keypad. The fence gate rolled to one side. We drove into a carport overgrown with vines and parked next to a Prius.

  Bourbon led me inside, past a dining room, the house sumptuously decorated like it was the subject of a feature in Southern Living. A woman greeted us in the front parlor and introduced herself as Lori.

  I gave a sniff. Pure human. She was a late-twenty-something blonde wearing what a fashion catalog would call gardening casual: jeans, a loose blouse, and plastic clogs. Her eyes brightened when she greeted Bourbon.

  He let Lori kiss his cheek, acting as if this show of affection was a duty. After he pulled away, she still beamed, oblivious that the attraction was one way.

  Bourbon ordered, “Bring me a scotch and soda.”

  Lori smiled at me. Her eyebrows arched inquisitively.

  I said, “Manhattan.”

  Bourbon continued through the room. “We’ll be on the piazza.”

  The piazza was the long porch on the south side of his house. When Bourbon opened the door, a crow flew off the railing, circled a tree in his yard, and landed on a branch.

  Bourbon took no notice of the bird, but I did. Was the crow spying on us?

  We looked over an English-style garden in his front yard. Down the street, White Point Gardens sprawled across the southern tip of the peninsula. A steady breeze pushed a pair of sailing schooners through the harbor. The view alone was worth a million dollars.

  The Hummer was still at the corner, but the motorcycles were gone.

  Two groundskeepers strolled the perimeter of the yard, not doing any work other than looking around. Both had small leaf blowers slung over their shoulders in the manner of guards carrying submachine guns.

  “They are my chevaux-de-frise.” Bourbon pointed to tangled masses of points and barbs atop sections of the fence. “Before the invention of barbed wire, the owners put those up to discourage slaves from climbing the fences during uprisings. My groundskeepers’ leaf blowers hide rapid-fire shotguns, a much better deterrent.”

  Lori brought our drinks. She let her gaze linger on Bourbon’s face and didn’t bother to hide her infatuation. When she left, he stared at her trim bottom, showing the extent of his interest in her.

  “Girlfriend?” I asked.

  “Simply the help.”

  “Does she know that?”

  Bourbon smirked as he brought his scotch and soda to his lips.

  “She know you’re a were?�
��

  “Certainly.” He leaned against the railing of the piazza. “We have a relationship with humans in the know. We have to. You vampires have—”

  “Chalices. What are your humans called?”

  He sipped. “People. Servants. The help. We don’t need a special name.” Again with the Southern dismissal. “And we don’t feed on our help as you do.” More of his Southern backhand.

  His attitude got to me and I was ready to leave. “You brought me here to show me something. What?”

  Bourbon extended a finger toward the ships in the distance. “They’re bringing werewolves from outside the territory for Le Cercle de Sang et Crocs. Hundreds of werewolves. Calhoun mentioned that to you, right?”

  CHAPTER 24

  Bourbon pointed to the sailing ships in the harbor. “The one with the striped spinnaker, that’s Carlita’s Cujo, from Miami. The other one is the Rin Tin Tin from Baltimore. They’ve got a longstanding feud. Were discipline breaks down and…”

  “It’s war. Yeah, I know.” I sniffed my drink, suspicious of poisons. Smelled okay. I gave it a taste. Damn good manhattan. The real crime would be ruining this cocktail.

  I looked back to the schooners. “How many boats are you expecting?”

  “Dozens.”

  “Why sailing ships?”

  “Ostensibly, it’s a tall-ship festival. The city welcomes the business.” He sipped from his scotch and soda.

  “Is this what you brought me out here to see?”

  “I wanted you to comprehend the stakes in this battle between Calhoun and me.”

  “I’m already aware of them. Calhoun said that if you’re not chosen alpha of the territory, you’d risk war. I want to hear that from you. Don’t you owe your clan and the other werewolves something other than catastrophe?”

  Bourbon’s expression turned sour. “You say that like I should live with Calhoun as my alpha. Did you ask him if he would accept submission to me?”

  “A war starts, you could lose everything.”

  “I’d keep my honor.”