“Coffee is fine. I didn’t know you had lunch in mind. I’ve already eaten.”
Cavagnolo pleaded with his hands as if to refuse was to hurt him. “What’s an extra bite?”
I slapped my belly. “Gotta watch the weight. I prefer to get my bites somewhere else.”
“At least try the bread. The garlic seasoning is incredible.”
“No thanks,” I insisted. “Allergies.”
“You mean one of those gluten aversion things?”
“No, it’s the garlic.”
“Allergic to garlic?” He tore a chunk of bread and chomped on it. “Might as well give up breathing.”
That too, but not because of allergies.
I didn’t want Cavagnolo to think because we both worried about Phaedra that we were now on the road to becoming big chums. I decided to push him off balance.
“How does this affect…the thing?”
“What thing?”
“The deal you got with your buddies.” I pointed to an American flag over the bar. The feds.
“Oh.” Cavagnolo kept quiet. Nothing like the possibility of blackmail to drive a wedge between us.
He surprised me with a smile. “Can you believe it? The cops asked me about this Hennison creep. For once my hands were cleaner than a virgin’s panties.” The smile turned shrewd. “What’s come out of this deal is that I’ve gotten a bigger blank check to do what I’ve always been doing.”
“Playing the system?”
“Like a fucking piano.”
The waitress brought the Diet Coke and my coffee. Cavagnolo sipped the soda and his eyes focused on the faraway. My coffee was cold. I thought about asking for another, but no, I wasn’t staying.
He gave a long sigh, like he’d dropped a great weight off his shoulders. “Much as I’ve tried to help, that girl has always been trouble. Wouldn’t surprise me if all this shit spooked her and she took off.”
“Run away? Where to?”
“Who the fuck knows? It’s not the first time. Phaedra acted like she was hearing voices from another planet. I think everyone’s accepted the inevitable.”
“What are you getting at?”
He put the soda down. The droopiness was gone from his eyes and they looked hard. Stoic. “Why the concern? You don’t have a thing for her, do you?”
“No, I don’t have a thing for her. She’s a kid in trouble, that’s all.”
“What makes you think you’re so special to her?”
I turned her into a vampire.
“No matter what you’ve done,” Cavagnolo continued, “I’ll tell you how she’ll show her gratitude. The same as she’s done with everyone else. By leaving you on a goddamn limb. I know her. She used the excuse of the Huntington’s to break all the rules. Drugs. Sex. She stole from her school. Her aunt. From me. I’m saying this out of love. Her problems aren’t just here.” Cavagnolo tapped his brow. “But here as well.” He thumped his chest over the heart.
Not anymore.
His voice trailed to a mumble. “She ran off on her own, no?”
She was last seen with Nguyen, but I didn’t need to mention this. “As far as I know.”
“Then forget it. A girl her age, she wants to run away, you couldn’t keep her home by chaining her legs to the goddamn plumbing. I told you before. She is nothing but fucking trouble.”
Cavagnolo grabbed a hunk of bread and ran it through the marinara. The sauce dripped off the crust like blood. “Trust me, the next time you see Phaedra, you’ll regret it.”
CHAPTER 59
I was back in my office in the Oriental Theater. Three weeks had passed since my return from Morada. I should’ve been concerned with getting new cases: schmoozing my contacts and hanging out at the lawyer watering holes. So far all the work I’d accomplished was to open and sort my mail into two piles. Stuff I’d ignore today. Stuff I’d ignore tomorrow.
Jolie lay next to me. Our naked bodies pressed against each other.
The disappearance of Phaedra and Nguyen rekindled the anguish we’d felt after losing Carmen. We’d fallen back on each other. Sex was a way to feel safe and familiar. In the familiar we could feel our individual sorrow.
I spooned against Jolie as best I could on the narrow chaise longue. Our feet dangled off one end.
I slipped my arm under hers. “You seem distracted. What’s going on?”
“Besides losing Phaedra and Nguyen?” She clasped my hand and stared at the far wall.
I waited for her to complete an answer but she didn’t.
Jolie rubbed her head along my shoulder. “How much longer are we going to keep screwing?”
Sex wasn’t what troubled her. “You mean today?”
“No.” She let go of my hand. “I mean until we move on.”
I cupped her breast and dragged my fangs across the back of her neck. “Might take a while.”
She slapped my thigh and sat. “Then take care of business on your own. I gotta go.”
Jolie shimmied into her panties, a tank top, and leather motorcycle pants. The black cuffs made her naked feet look pink and raw. I slipped on jeans and an aloha shirt that I didn’t bother to button. The rest of our clothes remained on the floor.
Someone knocked. My ears and fingertips buzzed in alarm.
Jolie’s aura flashed with surprise.
Her eyes asked: Who could this be?
I responded with a shake of my head. The other three tenants on this floor had never bothered me. As far as I knew, I was alone in the building today. No one could come up without getting buzzed through the entrance.
Another knock.
My fangs and talons grew to fighting length.
A dog barked.
Dog?
Jolie put her back to the wall beside the door, her talons and fangs extended.
I approached the door. My contacts were out, so I’d zap first and ask questions later. My reflexes tensed to respond at vampire speed.
The dog gave another bark. I opened the door.
Orange glows surrounded two female vampires. Both wore sunglasses. The dark-skinned one was Phyllis. She held the leash to her weird retriever/blue heeler mutt.
The other vampire was a blonde wearing wraparound shades and a black trench coat. Her nose and cheekbones looked sharp enough to cut salami. Her hair was as shiny and perfect as a sheet of polished gold. The haughty attitude told me she must also be from the Araneum.
Jolie stepped into view.
Phyllis removed her sunglasses. She gave a wan, fangless smile that said: I’m here with bad news, let’s make the best of it.
I stood aside. “Phyllis, I can’t say it’s good to see you”-I motioned to the other vampire-“or your friend.”
The blonde took off her sunglasses and folded them into a pocket.
Jolie surprised me by making the introduction. “This is Nathacha De Brancovan.”
Nathacha glanced at our naked feet, my open shirt, and the clothes scattered by the chaise longue. Jolie had lingering fang marks on her shoulders and neck. I’m sure I had plenty of my own.
Nathacha’s undead eyes smoldered with disdain, first at Jolie, then at me. “Am I interrupting?” she asked in a dismissive French accent, more a statement than a question.
The last conversation I wanted to have was with someone from the Araneum. I already had enough grief; I didn’t need to parade my troubles in front of an audience to feel worse. “Would it make a difference if I said yes?”
“Of course not,” Nathacha answered.
The dog strained to get in. Phyllis held the leash tighter. Nathacha entered first. No question about the pecking order here.
Nathacha swooped toward the chaise longue and gave the discarded clothing another once-over. She didn’t step close, like she was afraid of contracting sex cooties. She circled behind my desk and pushed my executive chair adjacent to an ottoman.
Phyllis took another chair from in front of my desk and turned it around, careful not to scoot close to Nathacha. The
se two may be from the Araneum, but they sent out a vibe like a pair of magnets repelling each other.
Phyllis sat and clipped the dog’s leash to the chair’s chrome tubing.
After unbuttoning her coat, Nathacha relaxed into her chair as if we were here for a long meeting. With her shiny pewter blouse, black flared pants, and black slides with stiletto heels and long points, she might have been mistaken for the senior editor of a fashion magazine. She crossed her ankles across the top of the ottoman, claiming her presence as the alpha bitch.
Phyllis said to me. “Close the blinds.”
I didn’t like the mystery or taking orders. “Any reason?”
“Just close them,” Nathacha said.
I wanted to tell her to get off her Frenchie ass and do it herself, but if this was bad news, I better keep my mouth shut and not make it worse. I went to the windows and shut the blinds. The room became twilight dark.
Phyllis pulled a filigreed cylinder from the pocket of her wind-breaker. She held the cylinder in her hand like a baton. The cylinder resembled the message capsules the crow brought but was the size of a rolling pin.
My previous messages were tiny swatches of parchment. What tome did Phyllis carry in that cylinder? I’m sure we needed the darkness to keep the vampire parchment inside from bursting into flames.
Phyllis shook the cylinder, implying that I should take it. I’d rather hold a live grenade.
I grasped the cylinder. It weighed about a pound, same as a live grenade.
Nathacha said, “Open it.”
This was a moment when I wanted to push the fast-forward button. I only wanted to deal with the aftermath and skip the thorny details along the way.
The faceted rubies on the cap of the cylinder made for an easy grip. The cap twisted off. The horrendous odor of rotted meat belched out. I let the air clear before peering inside the cylinder. It held a rolled sheet of parchment.
I gave the cap to Phyllis. I tapped on the end of the cylinder like it was a bottle of ketchup. The edge of the parchment slid out. I pulled it free. A rubber band kept the parchment in a roll. I clipped the rubber band with a talon. The parchment uncurled with a snap and released another gust of funky smell.
Jolie tugged at my shirt. I sat beside her on the chaise longue. She took the cylinder from me.
I read the parchment. The writing was in calligraphy. The top two lines read:
Mémorandum
Des mesures disciplinaires pour Felix Gomez
Great, the damn thing was in French. Disciplinary measures? If this was punishment, the Araneum should’ve at least had the balls to give it to me in a way I could understand. The writing started neatly enough but a third of the way down the page, the lines became sloppy as if the author had gotten rushed. Spots and smears of brown ink-or blood? — marred the copy.
This parchment was thicker than the onionskin messages the crow brought. There was a watermark along one long edge. I held the parchment to the overhead light. The watermark was a faded tattoo of the Virgin of Guadalupe, something a barrio gangster would wear on his back. Despite what he might have done, I pitied the guy the parchment had come from. Vampires don’t willingly donate their skin.
“What’s this about?” I asked.
“Felix, this is the second time that you’ve failed the Araneum,” Nathacha replied.
Failed. The word hit me like a gob of spit.
She added, “Because of you, we lost Carmen Arellano.”
My face heated with anger. “I’ve owned up to that. Her loss means more to me than it does to you.”
Jolie put her hand on my thigh.
“I don’t doubt it.” Nathacha’s words dripped with a patronizing tone. “At least one consequence of this fiasco is that we don’t have to worry about Dr. Hennison or zombies.”
“I wouldn’t be too smug,” I replied. “The fire destroyed his lab, but on the other hand, we lost clues on how to track a future reanimator. What chemicals and equipment should we be watching for? What about his psychotronic diviner? Dr. Hennison managed to make one. How much longer before another reanimator starts poking into the astral plane?”
Nathacha kept her tombstone expression on me. “Like I said, a fiasco.”
My kundalini noir jolted from the insult. “How was that my fault?”
Jolie’s hand groped for mine.
“Because your investigation was, as you say”-Nathacha snapped her fingers-“une absolue fuckup.”
Jolie let go of my hand. She jumped to her feet. “That’s enough.”
Phyllis, Nathacha, and I seemed to lurch forward as if we’d all collided together. Even the dog noticed the outburst and tucked its head behind Phyllis’s legs.
“The Araneum set Felix up.”
My mind whipped from anger to confusion, then whipped back to someplace in between. I started to rise but Jolie kept me down by pushing her talons into my shoulder.
She said, “The Araneum knew all along about Phaedra’s powers but they didn’t warn Felix.”
Phyllis frowned and her eyebrows clenched. Her eyes swiveled from Jolie to Nathacha and back. “How do you know?”
Jolie pointed the cylinder at Nathacha. “Because she told me. The Araneum learned that Phaedra’s powers were the strongest they’d seen. They knew about her unstable personality and decided she was too dangerous. It was her idea”-Jolie jabbed the cylinder at Nathacha-“to confirm the Araneum’s suspicions. She had them send Felix and not warn him.”
My anger curdled into disgust. “Why?”
Nathacha answered, “Because if Phaedra could read your mind, she’d get all your secrets. If you didn’t know, she wouldn’t know. It was a tactical decision. For the greater good.”
Phyllis kept her aura smooth, but it glowed hot like the flame from a blowtorch. “What part of this greater good said not to tell me about this? Felix reports to me.”
Phyllis, Jolie, and I kept Nathacha in the cross fire of our gazes. She’d come here to lash me to a burning stake, and instead the fire licked her feet. But if she regarded this change in situation as more than an inconvenience, she didn’t show it.
Jolie kept her back straight and defiant. “Felix, just so you know, I wouldn’t have done it.” She meant killing and skinning me. “Please forgive me for keeping what Nathacha told me from you.”
At least Jolie was having an attack of conscience. “Nothing happened. What’s to forgive?”
Nathacha remained with her feet propped on the ottoman, un-ruffled by our drama. She gestured for the parchment. Of course, I had to walk to her so she didn’t have to budge from her chair. She held up a finger and shushed us to stay quiet while she read.
Nathacha pushed the ottoman out of the way. She sat up, handed the parchment back to me, and nodded to the window. “I regret any misunderstandings.”
Misunderstandings? She had almost gotten me killed. Her apology meant little; she might as well have written the words in yellow snow.
My aura must have been a banner of indignation. Phyllis made a palms-down calming motion and I tried to Zen out as best I could.
I forced the window open and threw the parchment outside. The parchment tumbled through the sunlight and exploded into flames. A cloud of gray smoke brought the odor of charred meat.
I shut the window.
“We still have other business,” Phyllis said. “Where are Phaedra and Nguyen?”
Nathacha pointed her icicle-dagger eyes at me like that problem was my fault.
“Why are you looking at me?” I asked. “Send a crow to find them.”
“We’ve tried,” she said. “None have come back.”
Phyllis stood. She took the cylinder from Jolie and screwed the cap back on. She dropped the cylinder into her windbreaker pocket and unclipped her dog from the chair. “Felix, we’ll get back to you.”
Nathacha came to her feet. She and Phyllis locked eyes. They shot words back and forth in French like broadsides from frigates. They abruptly came to a mutual cease-fir
e and let their animosity fade behind calm faces.
Phyllis opened the door. She took my hand and squeezed it. “Take care of yourself.” She gave a parting nod to Jolie and followed her dog into the hall.
Nathacha buttoned her coat and put on her sunglasses, her imperial demeanor unscathed.
Jolie said, “Nathacha, I know what you need.”
“What’s that?”
“A good fuck. Might do wonders for your attitude.”
She smiled grudgingly. “You would know. Au revoir.”
CHAPTER 60
I returned to my apartment. I needed a drink. I made a manhattan and sipped from it as I wandered through my place.
Everything around me felt small. I didn’t feel bigger, I think it was that I was aware how my world had shrunk around me. I was boxed in.
I examined the hawthorn stake. The phallic design was someone’s idea of a black joke. Final words to a vampire: Screw you.
This stake was the one souvenir I never wanted but was the only item I had to remind me of Phaedra. I put the stake on the table next to my coffin.
I darkened my apartment and prepared to go to sleep. Usually, I like a snack-half a bag of blood-before I lie down.
I didn’t feel like eating; I only wanted to close my eyes and let time soften the sharp edges of what happened today.
I thought about all the occasions, as a human and as a vampire, that I tried my best and came up short. If it was only me who bore the consequences, then I could make peace with myself. But I had caused others to suffer and I would always be to blame.
I rested against the satin lining of my coffin. I needed to relax, but my mind wandered back to the meeting with Phyllis and Nathacha. It felt like a cue ball cracking hard during a break. My thoughts ricocheted and scattered across my mind.
I’ve given my best to the Araneum and yet they were willing to sacrifice me.
What did it mean to be loyal?
The question burned heavy and hot where my heart used to be.
My kundalini noir tensed, like it expected another blow.
My mind grasped at the one remaining lifeline, a blind faith that all would work out.
Give it time. You have an eternity.
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