The Chupacabra (10 page)

“Of being a liar and a traitor,” she replied tartly. When he didn't respond she bit her lip, which was wobbling dangerously. She would not cry in front of him. She would not.

“You told me that Xolo wouldn't be put down, you promised me. And then when my back was turned you let Pablo shoot him anyway!”

She just couldn't believe it when a smile started in the corners of Armado's lips and broadened out to a full beam. Then, slowly, to make sure she understood every word, he said, “Yes, I promised you, and I kept my promise.”

Vanessa felt the ground shift beneath her and looked about her uncertainly, hoping to catch Nikki's eye. Instead, she caught Carmen's, and her eyes were blazing with indignation. How dare Vanessa accuse her brother! She didn't say a word, but Vanessa could read it in her face.

“But I heard the shots,” Vanessa said with a little less conviction this time.

Armado continued to smile at her and there was a look of admiration in his eyes that she really couldn't fathom.

“That was just Pablo taking his anger out on a couple of poor birds,” said Carmen angrily. “Mama and Armado would not let him shoot Xolo, so he shot something else. Anyway, he probably should have shot Xolo. That dog nearly attacked Nikki, remember? And now he has killed Tepin!”

“Tepin?” Vanessa was so concentrated on Xolo that she had forgotten the goat's name.

“It was Carmen's kid goat that Xolo attacked,” Nikki muttered from the side of her mouth at Vanessa.

Vanessa opened her mouth to defend Xolo again and then shut it when she saw the look on Nikki's and Carmen's faces.

“I think you owe my brother an apology,” Carmen said coldly. She looked incredibly like Frida at that moment. “Armado would never go back on his word.”

Then Vanessa did something that surprised even Nikki. She walked over to Armado and threw her arms around his neck.

“Did Pablo really not shoot Xolo?” she asked quietly.

“Of course not.” Armado hugged her back.

Relief made her rest against him, and she could feel the comfort of his arms around her. It felt so good.

As if on cue, Frida Martinez opened the kitchen door and walked in to a silent room. Her back, which was already ramrod straight, stiffened further. She stared stonily at Vanessa, who stood paralyzed, her arms wrapped around Frida's son.

The world's three species of blood-sucking bats live mainly in the warm climates of Latin America, where most of the Chupacabra attacks have occurred. But while vampire bats can creep up on their sleeping prey, make painless incisions, and lap up the dripping blood, they cannot drain even a tiny animal of all its blood. Animals bitten by vampire bats will occasionally die because they get rabies, not because of blood loss.

It took Vanessa a couple of days to get over her embarrassing outburst in the kitchen. Armado seemed cool
about it, but Nikki was still teasing her about throwing herself at Armado. Vanessa tried to laugh it off.

“I could do much better than that dusty cowboy, Nikki. I know he's your cousin and he's nice, but come on!”

She guessed that Nikki didn't really believe her, and she most certainly didn't believe it herself. When Armado was around the air seemed charged around her, and she found it difficult to know what to say. Oh dear. This was not the fun it was cracked up to be.

Frida was a different matter altogether. Vanessa had been mortified by her appearance in the kitchen. If only Frida had said something when she had come in and seen her like that with Armado. Silence and raised eyebrows were far more painful.

Since then Vanessa had studiously avoided Frida. If she saw her coming one way she went the other. Where possible she made no eye contact and no conversation. But she still had the Spanish lessons to face, and they had become a nightmare.

Xolo was no worse for his near-death experience. And although he remained firmly locked away during the night, he was allowed to go out with Vanessa and Armado when they went on their riding lesson. He
loved to run alongside the horses as they galloped.

Today Armado and Vanessa took out the horses and headed for the eastern section of the ranch. The sky was a clear, intense blue, and Vanessa's spirits lifted. It was good to get out of the house. Tepin's death had cast a long shadow.

Vanessa had promised herself that she wouldn't bring up the killings. It was too gloomy, and she doubted that anyone would want to hear her theory about the Chupacabra. But when they stopped to let the horses drink from the river, she could not help herself.

“You didn't really think it was Xolo who attacked the animals, Armado?”

It was the first time she'd mentioned Xolo to him since the scene in the kitchen, although it had been bothering her for days.

“Well, he has got a bit aggressive in the last while. He was there when I found the dead animals, and he did have blood on him.”

Vanessa took another tack. “But how could he have drained the animals of blood? Wouldn't a vampire bat be as likely? South America is the only place in the world where there are actually real vampire bats.”

“Yes but we are in Mexico, Vanessa. It's not the same.”

“True,” she agreed, though it seemed close enough to her.

“Look, Vanessa, I've seen an aggressive dog on the ranch but not one vampire bat, so on balance …”

He didn't finish his sentence, and although he said it playfully it made Vanessa feel a bit foolish. She should shut up.

“But you can't really believe that Xolo could suck every last drop of blood out of two chickens and a goat either, can you?” she said grumpily.

“To be honest, I have no idea what to think, Vanessa.”

Armado looked worried, and Vanessa was tempted to say something about the Chupacabra when she was distracted by the sound of a dog barking in the distance. It came from somewhere in the middle of a dense clump of trees.

When Vanessa looked around Xolo was gone. The barking stopped suddenly. Something was up.

Armado and Vanessa looked at each other briefly and then, without a word, dropped down from their horses at the same time and ran to the edge of the
trees. Before they could plunge headlong into the foliage, Xolo trotted out beside them looking quite unfazed. Vanessa fell upon him, relieved. He had a bone in his mouth, which he dropped at her feet.

“Silly mutt, scaring us like that,” Vanessa scolded him. She picked up the bone. “Thank you for the present, but I've become a vegetarian, I'm afraid,” she said to the dog.

“Don't lie to Xolo.” Armado patted the dog's head, and Xolo rolled onto his back for a tummy rub. “I've seen you eating your steak—medium-rare—like the rest of us.”

It happened then, just as before. An assault on her senses. The same as in the shaman's house, but less shocking, because Vanessa recognized the signs this time. The same foul smell. Vanessa felt as if her eyes were pressed up against a curved glass and the things around her—the trees and horses and Armado—were all distorted. She saw Xolo's head transform into a man's head with smooth, sleek black hair and a hooked nose. Around his small neck was a string with feathers and a large crystal. Beside him was a beautiful woman whose head rotated 360 degrees and became the face of an owl. The bird woman.

Vanessa dropped the bone she had been holding, and Armado picked it up. He had been busy playing with Xolo and had not noticed Vanessa's ashen face. He inspected the bone.

“A deer, I suppose,” he said casually and then threw it high in the air back into the trees.

Vanessa turned to hide her confusion. She was shaking. Why was it that she was the only one affected by these visions? Was it some form of message for her, or was her grip on reality just slipping?

Naguals will often hide recently dead or dried animals amongst the belongings of people they wish to harm. Magical manipulations of these animals and the use of potions, incantations, and effigies are used to cause illness and even death.

The next day Vanessa found a dead lizard under her bed.

She was on her knees looking under the bed for her book when she noticed the little dried-out corpse. She wasn't bothered by it; she quite liked lizards. The
ridgy skin was so prehistoric looking. Besides, a dead one was easier to get a good look at; the live ones here were way too fast on their feet.

There was no book under the bed, though. It must be in her backpack, she thought. As soon as she opened her bag she knew that something was wrong. Right on top of her things lay a piece of snakeskin and a dried-out frog. The frog was stretched out flat and looked as if it had been hit by a bus. Poor thing. But what was it doing in her bag?

“Yuck,” said Nikki, coming into Vanessa's room through the French windows. “What is that in your hand?”

“A dead frog and some snakeskin,” Vanessa said flatly. “I have no idea how they got into my backpack. And there was a lizard too, under my bed. Also dead.”

“Horrible!” said Nikki.

“More mysterious than horrible, really,” Vanessa said. “I don't mind the dead things, but I do mind the idea that someone might have come into my room and left them here.”

“Maybe you left your window open,” Nikki suggested. “Maybe they crawled in and died there.”

“In my zipped backpack?” Vanessa persisted. “And
maybe the dead snake just happened to shed some of his skin as he opened the zipper?”

What could Nikki say?

“Someone put them there, Nikki, and I think I know who.”

“You know who?” Nikki repeated with a laugh. “You are beginning to sound like Harry Potter, Vanessa.”

Vanessa frowned.

“Sorry. You mean Pablo, don't you?” Nikki stopped smiling and straightened her face. “I know you don't like him, and he is pretty gross, but why would he do that?'

“To scare me again?” Vanessa didn't sound convincing, not even to herself.

“Again?” Nikki echoed.

Vanessa still hadn't told her about the incident in the kitchen, but Nikki was in a hurry.

“I have to go,” said Nikki. “Carmen is expecting me. Embroidery. Will you be all right, Vanessa?” Nikki looked hard at her friend. Vanessa was pale.

“I'm fine.” Vanessa smiled to reassure her. “I'll see you later.”

It was nearly time for Vanessa to go and join Izel
in the kitchen. Maybe she would have an explanation for the dried animals. First she would take a quick look at her cryptid file. She took it out now from the bottom drawer of her wardrobe where she had hidden it amongst her clothes. Since the animal killings Vanessa had been worried about somebody finding it. It was possible that they might suspect her of being involved in some way. They might accuse her of playing tricks. People had been blamed before for the Chupacabra's killings. Somebody was certainly playing tricks on her with the dead lizard and frog.

The first few chapters were about the Chupacabra—the sightings and theories. Vanessa thumbed the pages thoughtfully. She liked to imagine that her mum had done the same, that there was some trace of her still on the paper that Vanessa could connect with.

“What am I missing, Mum?” she said softly.

She could see that the Chupacabra's method of killing was similar to the way the animals had died here, on this ranch. Her next thought made her turn cold: What if it was actually something to do with her, Vanessa? What if she was a key, in some strange way, to the things that were happening? What if the
person who left these dead things around in her room knew something about Vanessa that she hardly knew herself?

She sat staring at the pages, her eyes blurry with unshed tears. She was in a panic. She didn't want to analyze it any further, but she was going to have to if she wanted to discover what was going on.

“Help me out here, Mum, will you?” she croaked. She read on. Most sightings had happened in Central and South America, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean, where it had all started nearly thirty years ago.

Vanessa threw the folder down and gave a loud snort. It was an unpleasant sort of noise even to her own ears, but it was a sound filled with relief. Of course it had nothing to do with her. She hadn't been in Puerto Rico thirty years ago; she hadn't been in Colombia eleven years ago. She'd been overreacting, thinking she might have some unconscious link to the killings. The first attacks on the ranch had happened before she even got here, hadn't they? The most likely explanation, as Armado said, was a wild dog. Just not Xolo.

Vanessa turned the page and got the surprise of her life. There, in front of her eyes, was her mother's
handwriting. She ran her fingers over the words and smiled. They were hard to read, more like scribbled thoughts than notes.

The Chupacabra is not just one creature but a type of creature, as the attacks have happened in many countries.

Is it the same thing in each country/place?

Is it a physical manifestation of something evil in a place?

Where do they hide? How can they stay so well hidden and yet leave trails of evidence in the form of dead goats and other animals?

If the killings are the result of a pack of wild, hungry dogs, surely you might expect the bodies to be torn apart by their teeth rather than for the blood to be drunk from three neat puncture wounds?

The word
teeth
made her jump to her feet as if she had gotten an electric shock. The tooth from the turtle girl! Maybe that was the key. She dived into her wardrobe and retrieved her dressing gown, which she had flung onto the wardrobe floor. She rooted in the pockets. Nothing. Had she lost it—or had someone
taken it? Someone who had sneaked into her room to leave dead creatures lying about to frighten her?

Vanessa went back to the file and read on.

In modern rural Mexico, the term
nagual
is often the same as witch or brujos, who are thought to be able to shape-shift into animals at night and suck blood from innocent victims. They can also steal properties and cause disease. In some indigenous societies, the position of the nagual is accepted as part of their community. They may know who the nagual is, and he is both feared and respected for his evil. In other communities the accusation of being a nagual may result in violent repercussions—much like the witch process of renaissance Europe.