Jolie climbed over the center console and slid into the copilot’s seat. She put on a headset.
Antoine peered over one shoulder back at Clayborn and me. He shouted, “Who is that ugly bastard? And where’s Carmen?”
I shouted, “She’s gone.” Saying those words brought the loss back and rekindled my guilt.
Antoine’s aura brightened with shock. “Where?”
“Where we can’t reach her.” Someone had to pay for the way I felt and I tightened the wire around Clayborn’s neck. “How can we get Carmen back?”
He gagged and managed, “What?”
I shouted louder, “How can we get Carmen back?”
Clayborn twisted his neck and turned one of his little ears toward me. “What?”
“You want to play deaf? We’d get to the questions later and I won’t be so polite.” I shoved Clayborn against the floor and used him as a footrest.
The helicopter kept close to the water and banked for the coastline. The inside of the Blackhawk was darker than the night. Antoine flew without needing the instrument lights.
He pointed to another headset hanging from the compartment ceiling. I pulled the headset on and the snug ear cups muffled the noise. I adjusted the intercom switch.
“Hear me okay?” Antoine asked, turning his face to me again. Jolie handled the controls. His voice crackled through the headset and his eyes glowed like red embers.
I answered yes and explained how we’d lost Carmen.
“Damn,” Antoine replied. “I stole this helicopter just for her. This plush ride belongs to the Department of Homeland Security.”
“She would’ve appreciated that.”
“So what do we do?”
I stomped Clayborn across his back. “We grill our stowaway.”
Jolie piped in, “I’ll supply the lighter fluid.”
Antoine clicked his intercom twice and turned around. He took over the controls and made a small adjustment to our course.
Lights dotted the shoreline. I guessed it was Parris Island, north of Hilton Head.
“Where’re we going?”
“I had this all figured out,” he answered. “I have a vampire friend in Green Pond. Runs an artists’ colony. The plan was to ditch the helicopter close by and then lie low for a while.”
“Good idea. We’ll do that then until Clayborn comes to his senses and tells us what we need to hear.”
Antoine announced that we were cruising up St. Helena Sound. The cool air swirled around us with the humid scent of swampy water. We flew across the ragged shore and over the black Carolina landscape. The moonlight glistened across the surf and the marshes. We flew for another minute. Below us the ground was mottled with the deep black of the woods against the pewter gray of the grasses.
Suddenly the instrument panel lit up. Static rushed through the headset and became quiet. The engines surged, then quit, and the roar of the helicopter was replaced by a foreboding silence. The helicopter yawed to the left. Antoine adjusted the controls and the Blackhawk settled into a flat glide. All the instrument lights went dark again.
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52
Antoine’s hand danced over switches and fumbled with the overhead circuit breakers. He started to shout, then realized how quiet it was. “We’ve lost power,” he said.
I didn’t need to hear that. Every setback put us further and further from saving Carmen.
“No shit, Orville Wright. What happened?” Jolie asked. Tendrils of worry whipped from her penumbra.
“You tell me.”
“Now what?”
“I pick a nice place to land and autorotate, baby.” Antoine shifted in his seat to peer down over the nose of the Blackhawk.
“Autorotate?” I asked.
Jolie answered, “Means gliding this helicopter to earth by windmilling the rotors.”
Somehow, gliding and helicopter didn’t belong in the same sentence. “You’ve done this before?”
“Not at night. And never in a Blackhawk.” Antoine hunched over the controls. “Hold tight kiddos, and enjoy the ride.”
Jolie cinched her harness and glanced at me. Her aura erupted with alarm.
Fear pulsed through Clayborn’s aura. He wiggled to get free. I kicked him in the ass to settle him down.
“There’s a road cutting through the marsh,” Antoine announced. “I’ll put us there.”
As we glided down, the serrated tree line rose to meet us.
The helicopter pitched upward and the whirling rotor blades bit the air with a whoosh, whoosh. A cloud of sand bellowed around us and swirled into the helicopter. My stomach sank against the bottom of my belly.
The tail wheel snagged the ground and the helicopter whipped forward. The main wheels slammed the ground. I knocked my head against my seat. Clayborn bounced against the floor.
For a moment, all of us, even Clayborn, remained still. I wiped the dust from my face and hands.
Antoine released his harness belts and flung them aside. “Safe.” He took off his headset and dropped it on the center console.
He and Jolie climbed out of the cockpit and came around to my side of the helicopter.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Hell if I know. I’m not going to fix the damn thing.” Antoine panned the sky as if to renew his bearings. “Hope you guys are up for a hike ’cause we’re freaking miles from Green Pond.”
“Why not call for a ride?” Jolie dug her cell phone from her pocket. Her expression blanched in surprise. “My phone’s dead.”
Antoine pulled his phone out and flipped it open. “Mine’s dead too.”
I noticed that the second hand on my watch had stopped. I pressed the stem to illuminate the face and it remained dark. This was too suspicious.
Clayborn wormed into a sitting position. His aura undulated in a low boil of despair. Tendrils of anxiety lashed from the penumbra.
Jolie grabbed a loose section of wire and used it to drag him out of the helicopter. Clayborn tipped over the edge of the cargo compartment and fell headfirst onto the ground. He balanced on his big head for an instant, then landed on his back, faceup in the dirt, and those dumbbell feet splayed apart. His pained expression screamed, man, that hurt.
Jolie reached down and jerked Clayborn to his feet. “Ask that little fucker what the hell’s going on.”
I unwound the wire but kept it cinched around his neck. I looped the free end around my wrist to keep him tethered.
Clayborn pulled the cloth gag from his mouth and tossed it on the ground. He stayed quiet.
I tapped my watch to see if it would start working again. It didn’t. “Seems all the electronics are toast.”
Antoine looked up the engine cowling. The rotor blades spun lazily as they slowed. “Could be from an EMP.”
“A what?” Jolie asked.
“Electromagnetic Pulse.”
“Where would that come from?”
“Usually, a nuclear blast,” I answered.
“I would’ve seen that,” she replied.
Clayborn’s big eyes turned upward to the twinkling stars.
I gave the leash a tug. “What are you looking for? Your friends?”
Clayborn’s aura sputtered like the fuse on dynamite. His black eyes fixed me with a glare of hatred. His toothless gape curled into a snarl. He mouthed the words “You’d better kill me because I’ll never forgive this.”
I brought my face close to his. “I don’t remember asking for forgiveness. What I want to know is, how do we get Carmen back?”
Clayborn narrowed his dark, wrinkled eyelids. “Then consider me dead because you can’t. Carmen and the others are gone for good.”
Rage pounded through me. I fought not to kill Clayborn. I froze my grip to keep my talons from ripping him apart. “How’d you move them?”
“Teleportation.”
Teleportation?
“Like Star Trek?”
Clayborn smirked. “Please.”
I wrapped both han
ds around his skinny neck and throttled him. “From where?”
He clutched my wrists. “The lab in the annex. That pedestal? It’s the transmitter. We transported them to an orbiting ship.”
“‘We’?”
“My comrades on the ship.” A veneer of triumphant smugness smoothed Clayborn’s aura. “The payment’s been made. You’ll be lucky to find where your friend Carmen will end up. Make it easy on yourself and forget trying to get her back.”
I punched his ugly face. “That’s not an option.”
Clayborn dropped to a knee.
A low hum echoed through the darkness. Clayborn struggled to his feet and his aura blazed with terror. He shrank toward the helicopter.
Jolie and Antoine gazed about. Their auras surged with confusion and alarm.
“I’ve heard that noise before.” My skin tingled with dread. “When another flying saucer came to take Odin’s body.”
“Flying saucer?” yelped Antoine. “Shit, first the power goes out on everything, then a flying saucer? Whenever one of those shows up in the movies, it’s never good news.”
“The last time they didn’t do anything to me,” I replied.
“Well pardon me if I don’t share your confidence.” Antoine’s aura and face lit up with distress.
Jolie pointed. “There it is.”
A black shape-a disk bisecting a spherical body-floated into view above the trees. This flying saucer was a smaller version of the one that had taken Odin’s body and the blaster.
Antoine backed away in the opposite direction. When his feet stepped off the sandy road and squished into the marsh, he bolted from us. His feet spanked the mud and his orange aura bounced over the saw grass like a burning ball.
Jolie shouted after him. “You goddamn coward, don’t you want to see what happens?”
“Post it on your blog.” Antoine’s voice ripped through the darkness.
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The saucer glided close and hovered a hundred feet from us, right on the edge of the marsh. The hum felt like an electric tickle. The hairs rose on the back of my neck. My kundalini noir writhed in alarm.
Clayborn’s aura burned incandescent yellow with terror.
“They’re not here to rescue you, are they?”
Clayborn stood beside me, quiet as a condemned man.
I gave the leash a tug. “Didn’t think so.”
Three struts extended from the belly of the saucer. It settled into the marsh, the struts flattening the grass and sinking into the mud.
A hatch the size of a car door opened and a ramp extended to the ground.
Clayborn squirmed. Jolie took a step from me.
“Where are you going?” I whispered to her.
“No sense bunching up, in case they open fire.”
Clayborn tried stepping away.
“Not you.” I jerked the leash and put my arm around his shoulders. “Who are they?”
Tendrils of despair snaked from Clayborn’s aura. “I don’t know.”
“Then why are you so worried? Are they fellow crooks you cheated? Or are they the law?”
The tendrils twisted like burning snakes. Either way, Clayborn was in deep intergalactic doo-doo.
But before I gave Clayborn up, his captors would have to help me find Carmen.
A yellow aura filled the hatch of the saucer. One alien emerged, squatting through the hatch and climbing onto the ramp. He had a humanoid shape and unfolded his legs to walk upright down the ramp. A second alien followed him, then a third. Their auras signaled caution, and they each advanced with one arm extended and holding a blaster pistol.
They were identical triplets and looked exactly like Gilbert Odin: mustaches, short-sleeve shirts, and wrinkled khaki trousers-the kind of cheap clothes a civil servant like Odin would wear.
At the bottom of the ramp, the first alien tripped and fell splashing into the marsh. His aura blazed with surprise. The other two aliens rushed beside him, all three tromping in the mud and struggling to get the first alien to his feet.
“So much for an awe-inspiring close encounter,” Jolie whispered.
Finally, the three aliens marched toward us, the mudsplattered one leading. A clip-on tie dangled from his collar. His aura simmered with embarrassment. They halted ten feet from me.
The alien at the left nudged the leader. “Go on.”
Alien number one pointed his blaster at me. His aura brightened with confidence. “Surrender your prisoner.”
A glop of mud fell from the tip of the pistol barrel. Another wave of embarrassment surged through his aura.
Jolie coughed.
The auras of all three aliens flashed like camera bulbs. They whirled and aimed their blasters at her.
I coughed.
Another flash from their auras and they whirled toward me.
I raised my free hand. “Easy now, guys. Someone could get hurt. We don’t want trouble.”
Alien leader lowered his pistol. The other two took his cue and lowered theirs as well.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Deputies,” said the alien on the right.
“Marshals,” said the deputy on the left.
Alien leader flexed his jaw in irritation.
“You’re cops?” I asked.
Alien leader nodded. “Cops. From the Galactic Union.”
“You got any ID?”
“Yeah, sure.” Alien on the right reached into his back pocket.
More embarrassment flared through the leader’s aura. He elbowed the other alien. Leader raised his blaster. “Here’s all the ID I need. Now give us Fugitive 187.”
“Fugitive?” I gave the leash a tug. “I knew Clayborn here wasn’t on the up-and-up. You got a warrant?”
Leader steadied the blaster. “Don’t push it.”
Jolie took careful steps toward Clayborn and me. “What’s he wanted for?”
“Class 2 crimes against the Union Code of Order. Violation of the quarantine. Interplanetary racketeering. Smuggling exotic contraband. Social contamination of a primitive species.”
“What primitive species?” I asked.
“You.”
Jolie stood behind Clayborn. “Anything else?”
“Class 1 crimes. Murder. Conspiracy to commit murder. He’s been sentenced to death in absentia. We’re to bring him back, dead or alive.”
I patted Clayborn’s head. “Is there a reward?”
“Yes. We leave you two alone.” Alien leader swung his pistol from me to Jolie.
“How did you find him?” I asked.
“We were patrolling near your planet Neptune when we picked up the power surge of a transporter dematerializer orbiting Earth. By the time we got here…”
By the time they got here? How many millions of miles away was Neptune? The teleportation happened yesterday, so they must have hauled serious space ass to get here.
Leader continued, “…the ship with the transporter was gone. But we got a fix on Fugitive 187. I didn’t know how we’d get him from the compound on Hilton Head but when you escaped with 187 in the helicopter, it was easy as cake.”
“You mean pie,” Jolie corrected.
“Pie, cake, doughnut, whatever.”
“My friend was teleported,” Jolie said. “Where to? Is she okay? I need to get her.”
Alien leader raised an eyebrow. He fixed his attention on Clayborn. “So it’s abetting the illegal transport of a native species? That’s a Class 4 offense.”
“If we turn Clayborn over,” Jolie asked, “can you get him to tell us where my friend has gone?”
“There is no if.” The alien on the left motioned with his blaster at me. “Fugitive 187 must answer for the Class 1 crimes.”
Jolie circled her hands around Clayborn’s neck. Spots of intrigue formed and floated in her aura. “Then give us a day, a few hours, to get him to talk.”
The leader snorted. “Don’t bother. Show her, 187.”
Clayborn slowly raised a h
and and splayed his tentacle fingers across his right eye. The tips of his fingers squeezed around the eyeball and entered the socket. He winced and the eyeball popped out with a wet slurp. A wire bundle, like an optic nerve, extended from the eyeball into the socket.
As a vampire, I’ve seen all kinds of creepy shit. This ranked near the top.
He offered the eye to Jolie. She shook her head.
“It’s a prosthetic,” the leader said. “Your Mr. Clayborn embezzled from his fellow gangsters. They kidnapped and tortured him to find out what he’d done with the money. Besides taking his eye, they roasted his wives and children in front of him. And still he wouldn’t talk.”
Clayborn licked the eyeball to moisten it and screwed it back into the socket. “I remain true to my principles.”
Alien on the right nodded. “So you see, it would be pointless to question him.”
Jolie massaged Clayborn’s neck. “Then you’ll help us find Carmen. I can’t abandon my friend.” Her aura brightened with anger.
“Our friend,” I added.
The leader answered, “Like I mentioned, that was a Class 4 violation. We have the Class 1s and 2s to investigate first.”
“Too bad for your friend,” said alien on the left. “We have our orders.”
“Meaning Clayborn keeps his secrets.”
“Probably.” The leader beckoned that I turn Clayborn over to him. “We need to take him.”
Jolie’s aura raged with defiance. “You said dead or alive?” Her talons extended quick as hornets’ stingers. With a move that would’ve been invisible to mortal eyes, Jolie’s talons scissored Clayborn’s neck. One second she was standing behind him, clasping his neck. An instant later she backed away, her hands held up. “Then take him.”
Clayborn wobbled in place. His knees buckled, his body sagged, and his head tipped forward. Purple blood gushed from the neck toward the alien cop trio.
They recoiled in horror. By the time they gathered themselves, Clayborn had plopped dead between them. His head plunked facedown into the sand. I held the empty hoop of wire.
The leader paced forward and examined the corpse. He sighed with disappointment.
I extended my talons and readied myself for the attack. “Don’t try to take us.”
The Undead Kama Sutra fg-3 Page 24