The Chaos Order (Fanghunters Book Three) (17 page)

In the picture alongside her was another figure, smaller than the woman, but relevant to the scene. It was a man, well, presumably a man, with a red chest and chalk-white legs, doing that same disjointed dance. The man’s hair was emanating from his head in long, wild strands. His face was deep red as if sunburned, those same giant swirls for eyes. His mouth lined with fangs. On his feet were what looked like sandals; black blocks beneath the soles and nothing on top protecting the bridges. In each hand he clutched a severed head by the hair; one appeared to be male, the other female. Blood dripped from the stumps.

Troy stared at the picture nonplussed.
What am I looking at?
And why was the old man so fascinated with it? Whatever the reason, Troy didn’t care; it was stopping a bullet from penetrating his skull, and that was the most important thing right about then.

Both Troy and Víbora watched on in bewilderment as Papa Esqueleto dramatically rose from his seat and took cautious steps toward Troy as if he were approaching a scorpion. He stopped a couple of feet away from him and thrust his neck out; now he resembled a turtle.

Troy flinched back.
What in the hell is he doing?

“
Mira,
” Papa Esqueleto said, pointing a lumpy, knotted finger at Troy’s shirt. Troy glanced down. Papa Esqueleto was jabbing his finger at the patterns on Troy’s bright red Hawaiian shirt, specifically at one of the many white flowers printed all over it. Troy frowned. Papa Esqueleto then scuttled over to the tapestry. He pointed up at the figure holding the heads, explicitly at the white flowers depicted on its red chest and stomach.

Troy squinted his eyes and stared at the tapestry. “Huh?” he uttered in bemusement. He looked down at his red shirt, white chinos, and sandals, then back at the guy in the picture.
No way...

Víbora stared open-mouthed at the tapestry, then at Troy.

Papa Esqueleto made a circle around the picture’s face, then pointed at Troy. “
Rojo! Rojo!
” he began shouting in excited bursts.

Rojo?
Troy thought to himself.
Red?
Rojo
means red, right
?
I think so.
Then he remembered his ‘sunburn’ from the sunbed Dom and Trixie put him under. His jaw dropped.

“
Es él!
” the old man exclaimed, hopping on the spot. “
Es él!
El Sanguinario! El Sanguinario!” he repeated, clutching at his head as if the sky was about to fall right on him.

Víbora watched on, his brow furrowed. He glanced from the depiction to Troy, his jaw slack.

Troy straightened his back and grinned.

Víbora looked him up and down, his brow still furrowed.

Papa Esqueleto snatched the gun from Víbora’s hand. At first Víbora resisted, then when the old man’s anger intensified, he let the gun go and raised his palms in the air. “Okay, okay!” he said, backing off.

Papa Esqueleto cut a stern finger across the air. He pointed at Troy. “
Es
el Sanguinario
.
No kill! No kill!” he said in no uncertain terms. “No kill!”

Víbora briefly closed his eyes and bowed his head. “
Si, si, señor
.
No kill.”

Papa Esqueleto threw the gun away to the corner of the room. Troy followed it with his eyes. He wondered if he could make a dash for it, take these two out, then escape. He licked his lips.

“Is that you,
chico
?” Víbora then asked, making Troy flick his eyes toward him
.

Víbora was now staring at Troy in earnest. “In that picture? Is that you,
amigo
?”

Troy sniffed and straightened his back. “
Si
. Yep, that’s me,” he answered, now realizing his best chance of survival was pretending to be the thing in the tapestry. “I have returned,” he said in a deep, commanding voice, fist-pumping his chest. “El...” He turned his head to the side. “What was it again?”

“El Sanguinario,” Víbora reminded him. “The Bloodthirsty One.”

“Yes, the Bloodthirsty One!” Troy echoed. “That’s me. And I am very thirsty for blood right about now!”

Papa Esqueleto pointed at Troy with gusto. “He come!” he said with a loud chuckle. He clasped his hands together, joy and happiness painted all over his wrinkled face. He then came back down to earth. “
Ahora, tiene que completar la Peregrinación
,
” he said in a slow, serious voice, bringing his fist down on the air.

“
La Peregrinación?
” Víbora echoed, pointing at Troy in disbelief, looking him up and down like he was a piece of dirt.

Papa Esqueleto gave him a vehement nod. “
Si! La Peregrinación!
” He then began rambling on in an excitable manner for a few seconds.

Troy stared at Víbora with suspicion. “What did he just say?”

Víbora sighed. “He say you have to go on the pilgrimage of the Unholy Mother to be united with her.”

Papa Esqueleto nodded his head firm. “
La
Peregrinación
.”

“The unholy what?” Troy asked.

“Her,” Víbora said, cocking his head toward the tapestry. “The Unholy Mother. Magdalena.”

Troy stared at the picture once more. He set his eyes on the thing holding the snakes. The Unholy Mother? She didn’t look very motherly to him. In fact she looked like the devil.

“She will complete your transformation to vampire,” Víbora added. “It’s prophecy.”

“And if I...
don’t
,” Troy dared ask, staring at them both from the corners of his eyes.

Papa Esqueleto seemed to understand what he asked because his response was to put his thumb up to his neck and then drag it across from ear-to-ear, his tongue sticking out; he even made a tearing sound for added effect.

Víbora looked at Troy and shrugged. “If you don’t, it’ll be your head we cut off,
señor
.”

Troy gulped.

Víbora laughed.

“Ugh, Latinos!”
Troy grumbled to himself.

PART THREE

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

V
incent switched on the TV to check up on proceedings. He didn’t trust the media reports of what was going on in and around the I-Sore Tower; he knew that Benedict and the Dragon Order would have hijacked all of the major media outlets after the demise of the Bloods, but it was about as close as he could get to the action without sending his own guys down there. Besides, he’d always learned that the major media networks actually told the truth one hundred percent of the time; the problem was they added a touch of cyanide to the reporting to send the viewership down dark alleys that ultimately led to dead ends. Vincent knew that in order to avoid the cyanide pill, you had to read between the lines, get a gist of what was being reported and swing their propaganda back the way it came.

He tuned into Chicago True News Network, where the host Janice Scott-Sinclair beamed at him with her plastic grin and perfectly neat clothing. Her beauty was as superficial as the words she was reading from her teleprompter.

“Hi, and welcome to Chicago True News Network,”
she said directly to Vincent as if they were in the room together.

“On today’s news,”
Scott-Sinclair continued,
“what in the hell is going on in Chicago? Biblical floods, plagues of snakes, fighting on the streets. Are we in the end times? Or is it all just a storm in a teacup?”

Vincent shook his head.
Oh, Janice, Janice, Janice...

“Here’s John Anderson reporting live from near Chicago’s Loop.”

They cut to a residential area on the outskirts of the Loop. The streets were hidden beneath a shin-deep level of water. The reporter, John Anderson, was wading through it in a pair rubber boots with his pants tucked into them. The look was totally out of sync with his perfect hair and perma-tan. He looked to Vincent like a buffoon. Behind John people were sitting on the roofs of their houses and hanging out of upstairs windows, generally looking bemused or wading through the water like it was the Florida everglades.

“As you can see, Janice,”
Anderson began,
“the whole area is flooded. The streets for over ten blocks look exactly like this. It’s like a scene from a disaster movie. People here are frankly dumbfounded by what they’ve witnessed. They’re just starting to react to the events of the last forty-eight hours. Their homes are flooded, and the forecast is more rain on the way, so there’ll be no time to clean up what’s already happened before the same thing happens again. Residents are trying their best to put up temporary flood prevention methods such as sandbags, but it all seems futile against the flooding. The state of Illinois has issued warnings and there’s anger and resentment that there aren’t greater guards against flooding in place already, but, Janice, Chicago very rarely experiences flooding on this scale and so to blame the governing bodies for this seems a little unfair. They were just caught unawares.”

Unawares really means unprepared,
Vincent interpreted.

“John, what are the locals actually saying?”
asked Janice.

“Well, let’s go grab an interview with one or two, Janice.”
John then turned around and began striding through the water.
A man in a Bulls top was wading through the water a few feet away, his pants rolled up to his knees. John stepped up to him and stuck the microphone in his face.
“Sir, have you got time for a quick interview?”

“Sure, but I gotta be quick, cause I’m kinda busy right now.”

“Certainly. What are your views on what’s happening here?”

“Here? In Chicago? Man, it’s off the charts crazy. I mean we got all kindsa floods going on here. And snakes!”

“Snakes? Have you seen any?”

“Seen any? Snakes? I seen all kinds. Alllll kinds up in here.”

“Did they attack you?”

“Hell yeah, they did attack. Last night. Listen up, it bit me, right in the ass, right in my left cheek
,
and I was like, ‘whooo, baby!’ I was flying and rolling
,
and I was hollering like
,
‘yeah, baby, give it to me again and again!’ I gotta get me some of that snake action, for real. You know what I’m saying?”

“Really? You mean the snake actually bit you?”

“For real. But, they only seem to come out at night, during the day they’re hiding or something. But, man, I was like on another level, you know what I’m saying, like high as a goddamned kite for hours afterward.”

“What was it like?”

“It was like I was on a cloud floating away into the sunset.”
There was a dreamy look on his face.
“And then I came back to earth
,
and I just wanted more of that good stuff, you feel me?”

“More? But aren’t you afraid of them now?”

His face pinched.
“Hell no, are you kidding? I want one of them to bite me again! I’m on the lookout for more of them snakes, dude. I’m on a serious mission right now! So, if you don’t mind...”
He then turned away and began clicking his fingers. “
Here, snakey snakey,
” he cooed. “
Come to papa, snakey snakey,
” he continued as he wandered off into the distance, wading through the water.

John turned back to the camera and shrugged.
“Well, Janice, what can you say to that?”

Vincent listened to the interview with great interest. He grabbed his cell phone and dialed for Sun. One of the lab guys answered. “Hello? Felix?”

“Hi
,
Mr. Beauchamp.”

“Felix. These snakes that are all over Chicago are intriguing. Is there any way of capturing one and conducting experiments on them?”

“Well, I could find a snake charmer.”

“Hmm, I’m thinking more along the lines of a net of some kind.”

“I’ll get some guys on it. What is it specifically you’re looking for?”

“Vampirism.”

“In the... snakes?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay. Sounds... normal I suppose.”

“I’ve got a suspicion that’s all, and I need it confirmed either way.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

“Thank you.” Vincent hung up and turned his attention back to the TV news.

Miranda then entered the room, a small pile of papers in her hand. “Righteo,” she began, “paperwork confirming that those two choppers out there are ‘officially’ yours.” She held them out toward Vincent.

Vincent glanced down at them. “That was quick.”

Miranda gave him a sideways look. “Vinny... Who are you talking to?”