Rescue From Planet Pleasure (28 page)

Staring at the stars, I remembered all of the vampires who had fallen in this war. I also remembered the four chalices on D-Galtha who had sacrificed themselves: Toby, Irsan, Cassie, and Juanita. I set aside my grief to chuckle sardonically that despite the odds, we had triumphed.

***

Chapter Fifty-one

The western horizon brightened from indigo to azure. In a few moments the morning sun would crest the mesa and its rays would blast over us.

Carmen, Jolie, and I stood beside the Cress Tech Humvee. The Chaco Ruins were between us and the rising sun. We were dressed head-to-toe in thick clothing that included hoods, gloves, and welders’ masks. A dozen other vampires, similarly clad, stood alongside us. Soon after Carmen had killed Phaedra, vampires converged upon our location in a fleet of Humvees and MRAPs. They were the rest of Antoine and King Gullah’s force and had arrived too late to help us fight. The force was led by Mel Moretti, the whiskered leader of the Denver nidus, and Dan Sky-Pony, an old friend of Carmen’s I hadn’t seen for years. They shared their stash of heavy clothes so we could join them at this funeral.

Our vehicles were scattered along of the bottom slope of the mesa. Fifty yards away, Phaedra’s naked, headless body lay close to the rim of a kiva in the center of the ruins.

Mel and his vampires had rounded up Phaedra’s human minions, fanged and turned them, then cut off their heads. As dead vampires, they would be easier to dispose of. Their naked, decapitated bodies lay beside hers, all lined up like the catch of the day. The other headless bodies belonged to the remaining rogue vampires, also captured and executed. All the severed heads had been collected into a pyramid, Phaedra’s on top. The remains of the suicide-bomber vampires—torn limbs, fragments of torsos, assorted organs—had been likewise gathered for destruction.

Off to the side lay another line of undead, mangled remains. These belonged to Antoine and King Gullah and the rest of the crew we had scraped from the debris of their doomed helicopter.

To protect the Great Secret, we presented what was left of our bloodsucking kin—friend and foe—to be ravaged and consumed by the rising sun. Standing ramrod straight, we resembled stone sentinels jutting from the hard-scrabble landscape. Normally we vampires hid from the deadly reach of the dawn’s rays. But when it was time to offer our fellow vampires to the sun, especially en masse as we were doing today, we did so in a ceremony to pay homage in this final
adios amigos
.

A flock of crows landed among us. They turned toward the sun and held still.

The sun peeked over the horizon. The tinted lens of my visor dimmed the harsh light. A faint hum echoed through me, a noise that didn’t register in my ears but instead quivered through my nerves.

The sun floated above the horizon, its light exploding in nuclear brilliance. The humming sound raked needles across the inside of my skin. My kundalini noir vibrated like a crystal goblet on the verge of shattering. The mask became stifling hot. I squinted, then clenched my eyes. I saw red through my eyelids, then orange, and when the light threatened to burn my retinas, I raised a gloved hand to shield my face.

The sun’s rays baked my hand and shoulders, then my chest. The humming noise sharpened to a whine. The sun rose and levered a wave of heat down my body. To my belly. My hips. My thighs. Shins. Feet. The heat cooled. I opened my eyes and dropped my hand. All the other vampires were also lowering theirs so it appeared as though we had just finished saluting the sun.

The white edge of sunlight crept from us to the corpses at the ruins. The instant the light touched undead flesh, the skin crinkled and smoldered. Phaedra’s belly tore open, spilling guts that writhed and shriveled in the dirt. Like the others, her body crumbled, revealing bone, which broke apart and disintegrated into ash.

The light reached the pile of heads. Phaedra’s faced the sun, so all we could see was the back of her cranium. Her hair burst into smoke. Flames jutted out her ears. Her skull softened, then collapsed as if it were a rotting pumpkin. The mass of heads beneath her crumpled, and the burning skulls scattered like loose melons. Tongues of fire licked from eye sockets, ear holes, mouths, and neck stumps. The air stank of burning meat and scorched bone.

I felt no satisfaction at seeing Phaedra incinerate. All the misery she had caused was too high a price for the cheap thrill of watching her roast.

The whine softened to a hum, then dwindled into silence. Smoke braided over the piles of ash. The mysterious wind that always appears afterwards swept from the south and kicked up the soot. Twists of gray corkscrewed into the sky, fading, dissolving to nothing. Some of these vampires had lived for centuries, dined on the necks of kings and queens and lorded over empires. Now nothing remained but their memory. Chaco Ruins and the surrounding mesa appeared suddenly vast and I felt incredibly small.

The back of my head still smarted. Jolie, Carmen, and I moved like our bones were connected with rusted hinges. Our kundalini noirs were tender like the raw flesh under a scab. Even with our vampire recuperative powers, we’d still need days of rest and a diet of fresh human blood to get back our undead mojo.

The sun climbed high enough to weaken the dawn’s light. I lifted the welder’s mask to slide sunglasses underneath and cover my eyes. Oven-hot air toasted my skin. All of the vampires removed their masks and began to unfasten the protective garments.

As one, the crows leapt upwards. They scattered in groups of two and three and flew in all directions. Their cawing filled the canyon with a melancholy echo.

Mel’s assistants collected the masks and clothing. Jolie donned wrap-around shades and smeared sun block to touch up the back of her hands. She offered some to Carmen, who refused with a shake of her head. Jolie held the tube for me, but I didn’t need it. She tucked it into a jeans pocket and fished out loose cartridges to top off the magazines of her .45s.

Carmen rubbed her side like she was massaging a cramp.

“You okay?” Jolie asked.

“My kundalini noir has stopped hemorrhaging, but it will be days before I’ll feel normal.” Carmen lowered herself onto a large rock and sat, her expression shrinking into a thousand-yard stare. Like her, for the moment, I was done with fighting. All I wanted was to sit beside her and process all the drama and heartache we had gone through.

I put my hand on her shoulder, and she patted my fingers. Her mirrored sunglasses reflected the mesa but of course, not me.

Mel trundled over to us, Ray-Bans on his face. In his padded suit and thick boots, he looked like a deep-sea diver. He asked, “Everybody up and at ’em?”

Carmen nodded and raked fingers through her stringy, sweat-matted hair. Jolie and I helped her up.

Mel set his helmet on the ground and unzipped his suit across the front and down the legs. He shrugged out of it and kicked his boots free. He slipped a cigar from his shirt pocket and stuck it in his mouth. A crow landed by his stocking feet.

“Now that we’re done with this business, the real work starts.” He mumbled around the cigar. “First order of business is to reconstitute the Araneum.” He pulled a memo pad from the pocket and flipped through the pages. “Now raise your left hand.”

We raised our left hands.

“Now bare your fangs and repeat after me.
Tenebras et perpetuam noctem copias obtestor, meos immortuorum ad fidem Araneum et in perpetuum defendat, Magni Secreti.
”

I hadn’t recited those words in years, not since I was enlisted as an enforcer for the Araneum. Not every vampire swears allegiance to the Araneum, but every undead bloodsucker must protect the Great Secret. If they didn’t, they answered to killers like me.

Mel plucked a fountain pen from his pocket. He jotted our names onto a page of the memo pad and tore it free. The crow extended one leg, a message capsule clipped to its ankle. Mel crouched to remove the capsule, unscrewed the top, and inserted the page. He replaced the top and clipped it back on the crow. It jumped past his head, circling upward, and flew toward the east.

Wisps of smoke ribboned in the canyon from fires north of us, the wrecked vehicles from last night’s fight between King Gullah’s vampires and Cress Tech.

“What a mess,” I said.

“Of course it’s a mess,” Mel replied. “What else would you expect from the federal government? It’s such a big, goddamn mess they haven’t yet figured out what to do. Right now Cress Tech and the feds are so busy pointing fingers that it’ll be a few hours before any help shows up.”

“There’s going to be a huge investigation.”

Mel laughed. “Fuck yeah.” His cigar balanced on the edge of his bottom teeth. “The ‘huger’ the better.” He pointed to the line of towers in the distance, so far away they resembled a faint line of toothpicks. “Cress Tech and their buddies in the NSA and CIA cobbled together this scheme to discover psychic powers and communicate with aliens. And what did they get? One big goat screw. A shoot-out between friendly forces. Untold numbers of casualties. Dozens of wrecked vehicles and helicopters. Millions and millions of dollars lost. And for what?” One of Mel’s bushy eyebrows danced like a spastic, hairy caterpillar.

I couldn’t see what Cress Tech had learned. “Nothing?”

“Exactly. Bupkis. Imagine how bat-shit crazy this expensive cluster fuck is going to sound to Congress.”

“If it gets that far,” Carmen added.

“So no more psychotronic research?” I asked.

“For now.” Mel flicked a vintage Zippo and lit the cigar. His hamster-like cheeks bellowed as he puffed, causing his steel wool-like sideburns to bristle.

“Then are we done?” Jolie asked. “We have other business to attend to.”

Mel snapped the Zippo closed. He tipped his head to the mesa behind us, in the direction of Coyote’s home. “Yeah, sure. Give my regards.” He saluted with his cigar.

We returned to the Humvee and climbed in. Devane was where we had left him, balled up in the rear seat and covered by a tarp. When the poor guy finally came to, he would be groggy and stiff for another couple of days. His memory of the big, bad Cress Tech shootout would be one blank stretch of amnesia.

Jolie did a sharp U-turn, and we four-wheeled up the mesa to Coyote’s home, or what was left of it.

A long, gleaming Airstream trailer was parked beside Coyote’s burned-out doublewide. A Ford F-350 idled by the fence. Yellowhair-Chavez and his Navajo buddies—skin-walkers for sure—were double-checking the leveling jacks at the corners of the Airstream. They hadn’t wasted time finding a new crib for Coyote and Rainelle.

Jolie parked, and we got out. Carmen limped a couple of steps until her gait strengthened. From somewhere around the trailer, a generator purred. Yellowhair-Chavez ceased his work and his gaze followed Jolie.

“Your secret admirer and his leveling rod want attention,” I said.

She shot me a dirty look, then smiled warmly at the skin-walker. He returned to inspecting the jacks.

The door to the Airstream opened. Rainelle stepped onto a makeshift porch and waved a cheerful welcome. “Coffee’s ready. And I have tamales. Fry bread. Some fresh Type A Positive.” She made no mention that we had just survived the worst fight of our supernatural lives and acted like we had stopped by for a Sunday visit.

“How is Coyote?” I asked.

She held the door open for us. “Doing better.”

“How about Doña Marina?” Carmen climbed the steps.

“She’s inside, with Coyote.”

“And El Cucuy?”

“Gone,” Rainelle answered. “It’s daylight, remember?”

The Mexican boogieman had been a good ally, but I didn’t appreciate how he and Doña Marina had used us to distract Phaedra. If I met him again, I didn’t know if I would shake his hand or kick him in the balls.

We filed into the crowded kitchen and removed our shades. Warm, homey aromas from the stove and plastic, new-trailer smells greeted us. Rainelle told us to go to the right through the dining area. The narrow door at the end stood open.

Coyote lay on the bed, propped up on a stack of pillows. He was dressed in clean clothes, even clean socks. Doña Marina sat beside him on the mattress, dressed in a purple velour tracksuit. She was stirring a cup of porridge that smelled like raw, bloody liver. My mouth watered.

My undead trickster friend grinned. His aura rippled around him.

I stepped forward, but he waved me back, “Where are your manners,
cabron?
” He extended his hand to Jolie and Carmen. His withered face bunched around his smile, fangs jutting between thin lips. Jolie and Carmen took turns leaning over him to receive quick, grandfatherly pecks on their cheeks. He didn’t leer or try to cop a feel. I blinked in astonishment.

Doña Marina handed him the cup, and he spooned the liver porridge into his mouth.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“Needs cilantro. And rat,” he commented, then looked at me. “
Mejor
, for sure.”

His mother stood from the bed. “Now that Phaedra is dead,
mijo
’s wounds can heal.”

I gave her a cross stare. “What about a thank you?”

“I saved him, not you.” Doña Marina’s quick reply told me she knew exactly what I was getting at.

“By playing us,” I replied.

Carmen tugged at my arm.
Let it go.

I wanted to box Doña Marina in and make her squirm in remorse. Instead she smirked. “Men and their pride.” She presented her open hands and bowed. “
Gracias, mi valiente
. It’s not enough to be grateful that we won, and that my son and Carmen are safe, but I must acknowledge that your feelings are hurt. My apologies.”

I wasn’t shamed, only more angry, mostly at myself for thinking I could best a woman in an argument. I glanced at Coyote for guidance. He scraped his spoon inside the cup. The only way for me to save face was to beg pardon from his mother.

“Doña Marina,” I began, faking sincerity as best I could, “forgive me for …” She was gone.

Carmen and Jolie’s eyes widened in surprise. Their gazes searched the compact bedroom as if Doña Marina could be hiding in a corner or had tucked herself into a drawer.

“How did she do that?” I asked.

Coyote lapped crimson pudding from his spoon. “After all this,
ese
, haven’t you learned a thing? Summer school for you,
pendejo.
”

Rainelle called for us from the dining table. She had steaming cups of coffee and a carafe I hoped was filled with blood. We began to retreat from the bedroom.