The Virgin Vampire

by Melanie Thompson

  Jax nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

  * * * *

  The first thing Jax did was call Pia. If anyone knew where Targ had gone to ground for the day it would be her. Of course, it meant he would have to tell her what Targ had become.

  “Hi Jax,” Pia answered.

  “You still at the hospital?”

  “Oh, yes. Martha is feeling much better.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “They gave her drugs.” Voice back to normal. “Little William is adorable.”

  “Listen, Pia, I need your help. Targ is…uh, Targ is not himself, uh…”

  “What are you trying to say, Jax?”

  How did you tell someone’s sister he was a vampire? No other way but just jump right in. “Your brother was turned into a vampire by the Mayan killer. He’s gone to ground for the daylight hours and I have no idea where that is. I need to find him, Pia. Got any ideas where he might go?”

  The gasp on the other end of the line was loud. “Targ is a what?” Pia screamed.

  Jax heard Martha asking questions. This entire conversation was proving a huge mistake.

  “There’s no such thing as vampires,” she screamed.

  “Talk to Martha about this,” Jax told her. “She can verify what I’m saying. Is there a dark, safe underground place at your house maybe where Targ could hide from the sun?”

  Pia burst into sobs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Come on, Pia, concentrate. Forget the vampire thing for the moment. Where could Targ hide to sleep during the day?”

  Still sniffling, her voice shaky, Pia spoke. “We have a root cellar. It’s in the tool shed behind the house. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about?”

  “Perfect. Thanks, now go talk to Martha about vampires. She qualifies as an expert.”

  Jax headed to downtown Everett pulling into Targ’s driveway moments later. The sun broke from behind a cloud. The light was filtered by trees dripping with the recent rain. It reminded Jax that even if he found Targ, he’d have to figure out how to transport him.

  The shed door hung open. Tools were flung away from a trap door set into the floor. Barefoot-prints marred a layer of dust and there was a perfect handprint on top of the door. Jax sniffed. He smelled vampire. If it wasn’t Targ in the root cellar there was another vampire down there.

  When he lifted the lid, a shaft of sunlight penetrated the gloom illuminating Targ lying on his face in the daylight stupor of a vampire. Jax let the door slam shut before the light could harm him, and sat back on his heels to think. His phone chirped and he answered it.

  “Sequeros.”

  “Jax, you coming?” It was Al. “Lorelai and the other twin are here. I leased the same jet.”

  “I’m having a little difficulty. For some reason, Shelly wants me to take Targ. He says we’re going to need him. I can’t imagine why, but you know Shelly, he gets these feelings and he’s rarely wrong. The problem is how do I get him to the airport in the daylight?”

  “Shelly wants you to bring Targ,” Al said in a thoughtful voice. “You know, he could be of assistance in finding the Mayan vampire. They are connected. Balam is his maker. Why don’t you call your funereal friend, the Japanese dude Ishi-something, and borrow the morgue van. Don’t they have a black body bag you can zip Targ into?”

  Jax groaned. Ken again. “That’s a great idea. I’ll hustle over to the morgue, wrap Targ up, and be there in two hours.”

  It took longer than two hours, more like four, but Jax, driving the white van, arrived at the airport and found the jet waiting where it was the last time he and Al had flown off on an adventure. That time it was Russia, this time it was Guatemala.

  Al and Tuco emerged from the plane to meet him. Tuco’s severe expression spoke volumes. He stood stiffly next to the van while Jax opened the back and pulled the gurney loaded with Targ out.

  “I can’t believe you expect me to ride with that…that creature.” He snarled. “It’s his fault my brother is in the hands of a monster.” His body shimmered and he fought for control, his face contorting with the effort. He put back his head and screamed. “I can feel his fear.”

  Lorelai tripped down the stairs and laid a calming hand on Tuco’s stiff shoulder. “Jax is right, we’ll need him. He can find his maker no matter where he hides. If you should lose your connection to your brother, what will we do? What if he’s unconscious or asleep? We need Targ.”

  Tuco spun on his heels and stalked up the steps into the plane. Al grinned. “Let’s load this corpse and get underway.”

  On the jet, Al sat next to Jax and laid a long-fingered hand on his arm. “How’d Shelly take it?”

  “Hard. He didn’t want me to go.”

  “Does he understand there will be more trips and more vampires? This is what you do.”

  Jax slumped in the leather seat and nodded. “He understands, but he’s not happy.”

  “From what I’ve heard so far, none of the members of your brotherhood had successful relationships. You’ll have to work to keep Shelly.”

  “I know.”

  Al pulled a map of Central America out of a black-leather bag. “If Balam plans to go to Naj Tunich, we should probably head for Belize, rent a car and cross the border at Melchor de Menchos. The caves are a hundred klics south of Flores and one heck of a lot easier to get to that way than from Guatemala City. If Balam flew to Guat City, he’s got a very long drive. We should catch up to him, maybe even get ahead of him.”

  “We could be waiting for him.”

  “Yeh, but we’re putting all our eggs in the Naj Tunich basket.”

  “We still have Tuco and Targ. They can find him.”

  Al’s eyes brightened. “You’re right. What am I worrying about?”

  Chapter 19

  Targ tried to sit up and found himself contained inside something rubber that smelled like chemicals and putrefied flesh. He felt a low vibration beneath his body and heard an engine whine and voices. He tore through the rubber bag with his nails and emerged into the baggage compartment of a jet.

  It was night and he was hungry, but not like his stomach was empty. He ached for blood like a junkie yearns for heroin. He needed it, wanted it, had to have it, and he smelled living creatures all around him, sensed their blood pulsing through veins and heard the beat of hearts.

  He leaped to his feet, found a door in the ceiling and pushed it open.

  “Targ’s awake,” Lorelai said.

  Jax stood over him staring down. “Hungry?”

  Targ nodded, forcing down the urge to attack and rip out his throat.

  “Blood,” Jax yelled.

  Al Fairfeather reached into a Styrofoam cooler and pulled out a pint bag. He tossed it to Jax who tossed it to Targ. He caught it and punched a hole in it with his fangs. He sucked the bag dry as he climbed into the passenger section of the aircraft and fell into an empty seat. “Where we going?”

  Al’s long legs were stuck out in front of him crossed at the ankles. “Belize.”

  “Where the hell is that?”

  “We’re going after my brother, you sick bastard,” Tuco growled. “Because of you, he’s in the hands of that Mayan murderer.”

  Tears filled Targ’s eyes as he remembered. “Enrique.”

  “Yeah, Enrique. It’s your fault Balam has him. You led him right to my brother.”

  “I would rather have died,” Targ cried. “I wish I’d died.” He buried his face in his hands. “I’ll do anything to save him.”

  Tuco growled and his voice dripped with disdain. “Oh, great, a drama-queen vampire.”

  “I can’t help it. I love Enrique. I’d do anything for him.”

  Tuco snorted. “You can’t love my brother. You don’t even know him.”

  Targ’s heart no longer beat but it was breaking. He’d finally found love only to be the agent of his love’s destruction. The bloody tears dried on his face as he straightened in his seat. “I’ll find Balam for you and then I’ll kill him.�
�

  “That’s enough fighting,” Jax said. We need to concentrate on making a plan. We can track them. What do we do when we catch up to them?” He strode down the center aisle between the seats and handed Targ another bag of blood. “Drink up. You’re going to need your strength. We land in an hour.”

  * * * *

  Balam seemed to have an unlimited amount of money to spend. When they landed at La Aurora Airport in Guatemala City, a limousine waited. The windows were darkly tinted and Balam wore sunglasses, but Enrique still didn’t understand how he could walk in the sun. He shielded his body with his arm but strode across the tarmac and climbed into the backseat in hot, steamy daylight. He had a secret to day-walking and Enrique wanted to know what it was.

  Moon Man hustled him into the waiting car and they shot down a highway toward the north. When Moon Man and Balam spoke to each other in his presence it was always in Mayan. They didn’t want him to understand or know what their plans were.

  As they drove, Enrique stared at a blue sky covered with white puffy clouds, the volcanic mountains, green in the distance, and the skyline of the city as they skirted it. His only hope lay in his twin and Targ. One of them, or maybe both, had to come for him or he was doomed. He sighed and leaned back. For them, he prayed they would not follow. For himself, there were no prayers left. He couldn’t wish them to try to rescue him. Balam would kill them all.

  Enrique knew the city. Tuco taught at the Universidad Mesoamericana de Guatemala, and he’d often visited him. The driver took them out of the city, driving too fast down a narrow road into the jungle toward El Rancho. The paving was uneven, cracked and dotted with potholes. Balam dozed, ignoring the bouncing of the car and Moon Man stared at Balam as though transfixed.

  Moon Man was an enigma. He seemed to be human, but his Mayan was old, almost archaic. And his tattoos were very primitive. Could he be as old as he appeared? How could Balam maintain him and not turn him vampire?

  The limo eventually pulled onto a side road and the driver climbed out to unlock and open a creaking, rusty, wrought-iron gate. They bumped and swerved down a rutted dirt track through dense jungle. Enrique smelled the fresh scent of crushed vegetation, wild animals and freedom. Maybe he would be able to shift when the car stopped and race into the jungle.

  Outbuildings cropped into view; a barn built of stone and roofed with palm fronds, huts and sheds. They stopped in front of an ancient stone mansion. It had to have been built centuries ago. Constructed of white limestone, gray and streaked with black, the three-story, pyramid-like structure resembled a Mayan temple. Stairs led past the first two stories directly into the third which resembled a temple.

  Enrique readied his muscles and steadied his breathing as he waited for the driver to open the door. But Balam woke and grabbed him by the throat. “I know what you’re thinking, shifter. Don’t try it. I can catch you and tear you to pieces in a second. And I really don’t want to do that. You are the sacrifice.” He stepped out of the limo dragging Enrique with him. “We will remain here only until tomorrow evening. I must gather my strength.”

  Moon Man put him in a dark room with a stone bed and started to leave. Enrique called to him. “Don’t go. Stay and talk to me. I know you speak Mayan and Spanish, do you speak English as well?”

  Moon Man paused in the open door. “I speak many languages.”

  “How old are you?”

  “So old, I can no longer remember.”

  “How long have you been with Chan Balam?”

  Moon Man closed his eyes and opened them half-way, staring at Enrique with his head tilted. His straight black hair was loose, swinging over one solid shoulder. “I have always been with the master.”

  “But you’re not a vampire. You have a strange scent, maybe a hint of the undead, but I figure that’s because you live with one.”

  “There are many mysteries and secrets of the supernatural you have yet to learn.” He thought for a moment. “And you will never learn. You are destined to be the master’s ticket into heaven.”

  “If Balam leaves the earth, what happens to you?”

  “That is for the master to decide. I serve him.”

  Enrique shook his head. This guy wasn’t right. “Do you expect to go with him?”

  Moon Man’s eyes misted. It was plain he had no hope of following his master into the afterlife. “He’s crazy, you know, and a demon. He’s never getting into heaven. He’s never getting through his hell, Xibalba. He’s going to fry for all eternity for his crimes against humans.”

  Moon Man hung his head as he edged through the door. “We shall see.”

  Enrique surged to his feet. “Wait, tell me what you are.” He reached out for the smaller man touching him gently on the arm. “Talk to me.”

  The Mayan seemed confused. “No one has ever wished to speak to me. I’m no one.”

  “Come sit here with me and tell me your story.”

  Moon Man walked slowly to the stone bed and sat on the thin pallet. Enrique sat next to him and waited.

  “The vampire you scent on me is true. My mother was a dhampir; her father the oldest, most powerful vampire to ever live, Camazotz. Dhampir are usually sterile. But she took a sacrifice to bed and conceived. I was the result of that mating.”

  “So you have vampire blood.”

  “Enough to keep me going over the centuries with blood from Balam. My mother, Sacnite, didn’t want to bear me but Camazotz, forced her to do it. She gave me to Balam when I was six and I have served him faithfully…in every way since.”

  “You were not nurtured.”

  Moon Man laughed. “I’m lucky they allowed me to be born.”

  “I don’t know if I’d call serving Balam much of a life.”

  His hands were laying in his lap. He wrung them, twisting his knuckles and fingers. “I must go. I shouldn’t be talking to you.”

  Enrique was a profiler and an expert at squeezing confessions out of hardened criminals. He sensed Moon Man’s pain and insecurity. “Give me your hand.”

  Startled, Moon Man gave it to him. It was callused, with dark skin and strong square-tipped fingers. “Balam is not going to heaven. I don’t care how many shifters he sacrifices. Think about it. What he’s doing, what he does, it’s wrong.” He tapped Moon Man on the chest. “You know it in here.”

  Moon Man gathered himself and walked to the door. He looked back at Enrique once and then shut it behind him.

  Chapter 20

  The ancient Land Cruiser they’d rented bounced along the Western Highway through Belize toward the Guatemalan border. Jax was behind the wheel. It was late at night; tall trees and thick jungle loomed over the narrow road creating a headlight tunnel. Tuco sat in the back brooding as the miles ticked by. Lorelai sat beside him. Jax, Targ and Al sat in the front on the bench seat.

  “This vehicle has no shock absorbers,” Lorelai groaned. “I’m carsick.”

  Tuco put his arm around her and squeezed. “We’ll stop soon and you can walk around.”

  A small town loomed out of the forest. They drove through the sleeping village and back into more jungle. “We’re almost to the border,” Al announced. “Everyone have their papers ready?”

  Al dug in a bag and removed his passport. Jax flipped his at Al who sat in the passenger seat, reaching over Targ to do it. Targ pulled his out and Tuco added his passport to the pile. “What about you, Lorelai?”

  “I don’t need human documentation,” she said. “They’ll never see me.”

  When they got close to the crossing, guards carrying AK-47s stood smoking beside the road. Lorelai giggled, shrank to a miniscule size and slid inside Tuco’s jacket. He squirmed uncomfortably as the fairy slid under his shirt and began caressing his chest with tiny hands. “Stop it,” he commanded. “You’ll make me appear foolish.”

  When they were well past the crossing and headed down the road to El Remate, she slipped out of his coat and popped back into her seat. El Remate was only a few miles from Flores, the small t
own in the middle of Lago de Peten Itza where his grandmother died. He remembered running the jungle with Enrique and his heart ached. Would he ever race beside his brother again?

  He reached forward and tapped Jax on the shoulder. “We’re going the wrong way. We should have flown into Guatemala City not Belize. Enrique is there. I can feel him.”

  Jax shrugged off his hand. “He won’t be there long. You said yourself that Balam believes the Naj Tunich cave system to be the entrance to the underworld.”

  “But he’s not yet there. It may take weeks for that murdering freak to travel through the Guatemalan countryside on his way to make this sacrifice. Enrique needs us now and he’s in Guatemala City. I can feel him. He’s alone in a dark room.” Tuco’s voice broke. “He’s frightened.”

  “It’s almost dawn,” Jax said. “We’ll stay in Flores and head off to the caves when the sun sets.”

  It was typical of Jax to ignore his wishes. The older shifter seemed to believe he was in charge of everything. “I can’t believe we’re only able to travel at night,” Tuco snapped. “It’s slowing us down. He’s slowing us down.” Tuco indicated Targ with his chin.

  Targ rose in his seat and snarled at Tuco. “I need blood, shifter. Don’t push me.”

  The atmosphere in the vehicle was thick enough to cut. Targ’s fangs were out and Tuco shimmered as his body tried to shift.

  “Stop,” Lorelai commanded. “I’m about to barf on both of you. I can’t take any more arguing. Put your fangs away, vampire.” She turned to Tuco and stroked his cheek. “And you, my darling, behave yourself.” She leaned closer to his ear and whispered. “I will make you very happy when we stop.” She licked his cheek, dragging her tongue slowly from his jawline to his ear where she nipped the lobe gently. “I’ve been a very bad fairy. I need a spanking.”

  Her voice and sizzling innuendo had him hard in seconds. He grabbed her ass and squeezed. She was dressed in sea-green cargo pants and a frilly blouse. Her firm breasts were naked under the filmy fabric. As she sat back in the seat, they pressed against his arm.