Lady of the Dead: A Lawson Vampire Mission (The Lawson Vampire Series)

by Jon F. Merz

  Finally, the chanting fell silent and a robed figure on either side of the woman in the middle moved to her side. They lifted the robe off of her until she stood there in the night air naked as they day she was born.

  As the robe came free and exposed her, the mask came off as well. Her back was to me and I found myself wondering what she looked like.

  Turn around, I wanted to say.

  The flames of the fire suddenly grew higher as another breeze blew into the valley. I felt a wave of heat wash over the area and knew that there must have been spirits nearby. Unlike human spirits that made their energy known by being cold, vampire spirits raised the heat level.

  A lot.

  I wondered if the guys down there had started sweating yet. I was lucky to be some distance away, but even I could feel the warmth from my position.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the naked woman slowly turned to face the rest of the cartel members. Even from my distance, I could hear her speaking and the tone she spoke in gave me the willies.

  “My family, we have come here tonight to once again consecrate our allegiance to the dark gods of our ancient past.”

  Dark gods? I hate it when bad vampires start getting cozy with shit like that. I still had bad memories from back when Cosgrove started messing around with the Sargoth. What that mission had cost me still weighed heavily on my mind.

  But I’d met Talya, so I couldn’t complain that much.

  I snapped my eyes back to the woman and zoomed in a bit to see her features more clearly. Her face was made up to look like the actual zinc etching of La Calavera Catrina that bore her namesake. I wondered if she was old enough to have been the actual inspiration for the art. If she was slightly older than me, she might well have been.

  If so, I wondered what she’d done to the artist.

  On second thought, I didn’t want to know.

  I kept my eyes off of her naked body and concentrated on adjusting the sights. I slid the reticle right to the point above her heart and prepared to fire.

  7

  Which is exactly the moment she decided to turn around again and walk toward the man bound to the wall of the mountain. I could take her with a shot to the back, but I preferred putting the round into her chest. You never knew if the spine was going to interfere with the path of the bullet. Crazier things had happened in the past and I didn’t want to have to deal with that sort of aftermath. I needed this target dead.

  And soon.

  “Tonight, we will once again prepare a sacrifice for our master. We will spill the blood of this man and let our god drink his fill. Only then will he grant us victory over our enemies.”

  I frowned. When I died, I hoped that I got an audience with a deity and could ask why the hell so many gods demand blood spilled in their name. Sorta goes against the whole notion of someone on high looking out for you. Doesn’t it?

  The Lady of the Dead moved closer to the man who was clearly trembling with terror. She ran her hands over his body and then ripped his shirt wide open. She leaned close to his chest and then I saw her lick his left nipple.

  It reminded me of watching a snake and there wasn’t any part of it that struck me as even vaguely erotic.

  Especially when she bit down on the nipple, jerked her head to the side and tore it right off.

  The man’s scream echoed in the valley and carried up to my ears. I winced. That was a sight I wasn’t going to be able to get out of my head any time soon.

  Lucky me.

  I brought the scope back on the scene. Blood ran from the wound and La Calavera bent her mouth over it, slurping noisily in the night. Well, if I’d had any qualms about putting a round into her chest before, I sure as hell didn’t now. Hunting like this was strictly illegal. She would have been sanctioned anyway.

  After several minutes of feeding, La Calavera brought her blood-stained mouth away and tilted her head back, swallowing her fill and then gasping as the energy hit her system a few moments later. I could feel the vibe of it across the valley and up into my position. She’d taken enough blood that her victim was now merely moaning softly in the night.

  If she took much more, she wouldn’t have anything left to give her dark lord.

  She turned to her followers and smiled, her blood-stained teeth giving her a freakishly gross appearance. I brought the reticle once again onto her chest, positioning the red dot directly between her breasts.

  I slid the safety off the Vintorez and began my breathing that would allow me to maintain the most stillness when I took the shot.

  She cackled an ungodly sound then. Like laughter. Unsettling. Unnatural.

  I took first pressure off the trigger.

  And then my target vanished as she dropped lower and all of a sudden I found my sight locked on her eyes that seemed to be staring directly at me.

  Imagine my shock when she pointed a finger at me and I felt a wave of heat tear through the valley and rocket toward my position, scaring up a cloud of dirt and dust. I tucked my head and closed my eyes to ward off the grit flying at them.

  The boughs that had offered me some degree of concealment now flew apart and felt like a hundred hands grabbing at me.

  Fuck!

  I squeezed off two rounds, more for the fact that they might make her get her head down, rather than expecting them to somehow be accurate.

  I had to get out of there. I knew in that instant that she knew I was there. And she might even have other cartel members on the hunt for me right now.

  I backed out of my position, squirming out as the winds grew to a deafening howl. I gave up trying to be quiet. Getting out of there alive was the main priority. I thought about contacting Juarez, but there was no time. I needed to put space between me and the valley below. If I had to, I’d bushwhack clear across the country. Juarez could pick me up some place else.

  Once I was out of the position, I took cover behind a large rock and quickly took stock. I had plenty of ammo in the Vintorez and in my sidearm. The Vintorez was also suppressed which meant I could take out targets without potentially exposing myself by sound.

  I brought the Vintorez up and swung out from my position, preparing to move hard and fast. It was going to be a tough slog, but I was thankful I’d had that hit of juice. Even now, as I started calling upon my energy reserves, I could feel my heart pumping hard and the adrenaline flooding my system.

  I moved back up the trail as the wind tore the earth up around me. It was tough going because I could barely see from all the flying debris. I squinted and tried to make out the way before me.

  It kept getting hotter and hotter as well, which I knew meant the presence of vampire spirits. I wondered how accomplished of an Invoker La Calavera was. Juarez’s fears of her being able to kill a soul came flooding back into my head and didn’t do much for my optimism.

  But I had to keep moving.

  I backtracked the way I’d come in, but whereas before I’d been moving well, now I was flailing about due to the massive amount of dust and grit zipping through the air. The wind howled in my ears. It was like she was playing with me.

  Or the spirits she’d conjured were.

  I really wished I had Jack with me right then. He could have easily controlled the spirits and potentially even dealt with La Calavera instead of me needing to put a bullet into her chest.

  But Jack was a world away and I had to deal with this shit now.

  I scrambled down the slope before me, causing a minor landslide of shale that collapsed under my boots and went skittering everywhere. More howling wind blew around me.

  I thought I saw movement and brought the Vintorez up, leveling it on where I thought I’d seen the target.

  There.

  I squeezed a round off and felt the Vintorez kick slightly.

  But the shadow I’d aimed at simply vanished and the bullet did nothing to it.

  Dammit.

  I grabbed for my iPhone and punched in Juarez’s number. I huddled against a large rock an
d kept the barrel of the Vintorez aimed up in case anyone came upon me.

  The phone rang on the other end.

  “C’mon dammit.”

  It kept ringing.

  And then went dead as a huge gust of wind blew around me. I felt a wave of heat rush over the rock and the phone burned my hand. I looked at the screen and it started to melt then.

  I threw it away and resumed moving down the mountain. I had to get out of here.

  I heard another sound.

  Definitely footsteps.

  Or were they?

  It felt like I was in the middle of a sandstorm. I couldn’t see. I could barely hear a thing. My mind was confused. My thoughts were detached. I was losing focus.

  And then something bit me out of the darkness.

  I glanced down.

  Saw blood.

  But nothing was there.

  Had I been shot? I frowned and felt for a bullet hole. If the cartel was using Fixer rounds, then I was a goner. This was not good at all.

  My heart pounded in my chest, but I couldn’t find a bullet hole. I looked at my fingers, squinting through the grit as I did so.

  The blood was gone.

  I rubbed them together, not trusting my sight, but they weren’t sticky.

  An illusion?

  I shook my head and hoped that Juarez had seen my phone call and was even now driving through the night to reach me. I needed an immediate extract and waiting around here was going to be deadly to my continued existence.

  I shifted my stance and slid down another slope. Tall grass brushed against me and my face as I moved through it.

  And then my feet slipped on something and I fell on my butt, skidding to stop a few meters away, dinged by rocks on the way down.

  I grabbed for the Vintorez and brought it up around me. More shadows in the distance, but who were they? I didn’t want to risk shooting Juarez. A Fixer bullet would kill a human just as easily as a vampire, especially if the wooden fragmentation exploded in the heart.

  So much for me getting out of here.

  But if the cartel was closing in, I needed to even the odds because right now, they sucked bad.

  I kept the barrel of the Vintorez locked onto one moving figure. I squinted again, praying that my eyes could clear long enough to lock onto the target. But every time I tried to blink away the grit, my eyes filled with tears and clouded my vision.

  I was going to have to take a chance on it being a bad guy soon enough.

  I just hoped I wasn’t making a big mistake.

  The figure moved again and I fired.

  He dropped.

  Gunfire rang out, bullets splanging into the ground around me. Bits of rock fragmentation jumped up and bit at me and I was grateful for the protection my clothing offered me.

  But it wasn’t going to be nearly enough.

  Especially when the rate of gunfire increased then and I knew that I had at least six bad guys around me.

  I should have brought a few grenades.

  If I stayed where I was, I was dead meat. I thought about making a break for it, but I knew I’d be exposed to a ridiculous amount of fire coming down on me. It also didn’t help that they’d somehow managed to get above me, so all of the gunfire was raining down.

  The winds continued to howl and screech. The dirt and grit kept flying.

  Trying to shoot anyone on this mess was almost fruitless.

  And the thought that jumped into my mind wasn’t one I welcomed at all. But my choices - if you could even call them that - were limited.

  As in nonexistent.

  “All right,” I shouted then. And then took a deep breath behind my mask. “I surrender.”

  8

  The barrel of an assault rifle jabbed me repeatedly in the spine as I was led down into the valley. The wind had died down and I could hear voices ahead of me speaking in low tones that didn’t do much for my confidence.

  It was not in my best interest to surrender, but I had no other real choice. If I’d stayed where I was, they would have simply shot me and that would be that. I couldn’t see; I couldn’t acquire a target; I wasn’t doing myself any good.

  Better to give up and try to play for time. I had a lot of hope left that Juarez would come save me from my demise.

  At least I hoped he’d received my call. If he could get here quickly, there was a chance he could interrupt La Calavera and get me the hell out of here. The problem was, I had no clue what sort of fighter Juarez was, if at all. For all I knew, the guy had never touched a gun before. That was even supposing he could get his hands on one.

  I sighed. Maybe death was the better option.

  I stumbled down the slope and fell forward. I raked my face along several rocks as I fell, not having the benefit of my hands to help break my fall since they were bound tightly behind me.

  The men around me laughed at my stumble and then jerked me back up, standing me on my wobbly feet. They jabbed again with the barrels of the guns and I started moving toward the back wall of the valley where I’d seen the earlier victim pinned.

  He was conspicuously absent at that moment, but smears of blood marked where he’d been and I didn’t think he was off on a coffee break.

  The scent of blood hung heavy in the air and I guessed that he was dead. Or being devoured. Or some other ungodly method of dying. I mean, she’d torn his nipple off with her teeth. I was guessing it wouldn’t simply be a bullet in the head and done with it.

  Who knew what she’d do with me?

  I was at the back of the wall of the valley and turned around, facing the headlights of the cars and trucks parked within the valley itself. I winced at the brightness, but blinked enough times to be able to endure it.

  I heard a door open and shut and then caught the silhouette of three figures moving toward me. This must be the trio of terror. Lucky me.

  “Habla Espanol?” I heard a voice ask.

  “Duh,” I said. “They wouldn’t have sent me if I didn’t know how to communicate in the language of the region. I don’t work for the State Department you know.”

  “I know that...Fixerrrrrrrrr.”

  I sighed. It always amazed me how many bad guys felt the need to drag out my job title like it was some sort of insult. I made a mental note to do that the next time I needed a plumber or something. Maybe it would work. “Well, hello...acupuncturistttttttttttt.”

  Probably not.

  “Great, you sussed me out. Congratulations. You know why I’m here then.”

  “Presumably to kill me.”

  I nodded. There didn’t seem to be much point denying it. “The Council is rather upset with your forays into the narcotics business.”

  She laughed and even though I still couldn’t see her face clearly, it sounded awful. Otherworldly. Like she was straddling two realms at the same time. Was that possible? I made a point to ask Jack if it was.

  “I do not answer to the Council.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but yeah, you do. We all do. You setting up shop down here, peddling your wares is not exactly keeping in line with the general guidelines that we all live by. You know, that little one about not fucking exposing our race to the humans?”

  “I will rule them all.”

  “Oh god, not another megalomaniac.” I looked around. “Look, I’d love to join you guys for s’mores and all, but the fact is, if you kill me, the Council will scramble a STA-F team and your entire family will be wiped off the face of the earth within a week. You can’t hide. We’ll find you. The best thing you can do is untie me and let me do my job. You’ve broken the law and there are repercussions for doing that.”

  Somehow, La Calavera closed the distance between us in a breath. One moment, she was twenty feet away and the next I saw her face up close and personal for the very first time. She was covered in make-up. Or was she? The lines drawn on her face seemed to undulate and change their appearance every second. It was like looking at an illusion that you can’t fixa
te on without doubting what your eyes tell you is real.

  I blinked and took a deep breath and the image settled. I could see her eyes. Blue. A brilliant icy blue that bore into my soul and I felt things inside of me being tugged as she attempted to control my mind.

  I winced and fought back, thinking about shooting her in the heart.

  She laughed and broke away from me without any effort. “You are stronger than I expected.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t like having my head fucked with.”

  She turned and regarded me. “Where are you from Fixer?”

  “Boston.”

  She frowned. “So…”

  “What?”

  But she wasn’t asking me a question. She was searching her memory. And when she had it, she only smiled slightly, exposing her white teeth.

  “Lawson.”

  Dammit. Apparently the ol’ reputation preceded me once again. One of these days I was going to have to take up knitting or something and lay low for awhile.

  Yeah, like that was gonna happen.

  “I’m impressed,” said La Calavera. “The Council must regard me as a very serious threat if they sent their best Fixer to deal with me.”

  “Well, I had some frequent flier miles that were about to expire, so...”

  La Calavera stared at me again. I wish I could say it felt good, but it felt like ass. Like every bad nightmare inside my head was getting ready to vomit forth from my skull.

  “You are rumored to be a witty one.”

  “That’s it? Not ‘an amazing fuck?’” I shook my head. “I really wish bad guys would focus on my good attributes instead of just my repartee.”

  La Calavera came closer and allowed her hand to trail from my chest down toward my belt buckle.

  I winced. “On second thought, let’s just talk about my sarcasm.”

  She smiled again but her eyes weren’t fixated on mine any longer. I could see the length of her fingernails and didn’t like what they were doing south of the border.

  “Really, I’m much more of a dinner-first kinda guy.”

  But La Calavera didn’t stop and I felt her hand encircle my groin, giving it a playful squeeze. At least I hoped it was playful. At that point, I was lying to myself and I didn’t care. I needed to get the hell out of there and kill her before she thought about ripping my dick off the way she had that nipple earlier.