by Matt Kincade
“I said shut up. Put your hands behind—” The woman sat up and tried to stand. Bad idea. Her vision spotted, and she stumbled. The gun wavered.
Alex pounced. In one smooth motion, he grabbed the gun and scooped up the woman, depositing her gently back on the floor. He picked up one of the far-flung pillows from the couch and slid it under her head.
“Now just hold on,” Alex told her. “Like I said, you’re in rough shape. You lost a heap of blood, and that ain’t no joke. You keep fussin’, you’re gonna pull out that IV. Now I swear I’m just here to help, okay? What’s your name?”
The woman had no strength left to resist. She sighed. “Carmen.”
Alex grinned lopsidedly. “Well, ain’t that pretty. I’m Alex. You just rest easy now.”
“Don’t you even fucking…” her eyelids fluttered and her voice trailed away as her head fell back onto the pillow. Alex checked her pulse, set the IV bag on the couch, and went exploring.
A few minutes later, he returned with a laptop, a cell phone, a stack of paperwork, and a paper bag with $23,000 in cash. He left them all in a pile by the door.
Alex gently picked Carmen up in his arms.
She came to as he carried her toward the door. He was a blur, more of an impression. Lean, lanky. Whip thin. Despite that, she felt the strength in his arms as he effortlessly carried her out of the house. He maneuvered her through the doorway, and sunlight exploded into her eyes. The desert heat enveloped her. It was a feeling of movement, a gentle rocking as he carried her…somewhere. She heard a car door, felt hot vinyl against her legs.
“Just you rest easy,” Alex said. “I’ll be back in a tick.”
He was gone. Carmen fought to stay conscious. She shook her head to clear it and looked around. She was in the passenger seat of her Pontiac. Faded plastic dashboard. Analog gauges. An IV bag hanging from the passenger-side roof handle. A black backpack slumped at her feet. She leaned down, unzipped the back pocket, and grabbed her cell phone.
Carmen heard a noise: a hungry, engulfing sound. She looked up and over and saw flames churning from the eaves of the house. She watched for a second then looked back down at the cell. She tried to dial. No signal.
“Woman!” Alex opened the car door and snatched the phone from her hands. “I’m savin’ your life here. Could you just work with me for one gol-damned second?” He put the phone in his back pocket.
Alex tossed a duffel bag into the back. Carmen heard the trunk open then slam shut. He slid into the driver’s seat and handed her a bottle of Gatorade. “Do yourself a favor and get some fluids in your system, instead of devoting all your energy to my undoing.” He turned the key, and the engine growled to life. The Pontiac roared and fishtailed away when he dropped the clutch. “This car’s got some legs, don’t it? She still got the stock 389?” Carmen didn’t respond. Alex shrugged and smiled wryly.
They drove in silence. After a few minutes, Carmen cracked the seal on the Gatorade and drank. She leaned her head against the window glass, watching the desert scroll past outside. “What now?” she said.
“Up to you, I guess,” answered Alex. He glanced at her before returning his eyes to the dusty desert road. “Way I see it, there’s a couple options. I could take you home, wherever that might be. But I’m gonna be honest—you’re in pretty bad shape. Best thing would be to get you to a hospital. But then they’d likely be askin’ you all manner of awkward questions about what happened to your neck. Or you could hole up at my place and get some rest, and I can get a friend of mine to take a look at that bite.”
Carmen hesitated. “Aw, for Pete’s sake,” Alex said, “If I meant you any harm, don’t you think I’d have done it by now?”
She rolled her eyes. “Because it’s perfectly obvious that you’re such a harmless guy.”
“Oh, you mean what I did back there? That was just business. And hell, you might just want to think about where you’d be now if I hadn’t done what I done.”
Carmen didn’t respond. She crossed her arms and leaned against the door, avoiding his eyes.
“You’re one powerful stubborn woman, you know that? You need rest, and you need that bite taken care of, and a hospital don’t know how to do that. A vampire bite is a mean mother, and they don’t cover that in no Harvard Med School.”
He glanced at her again. She was slumped against the passenger door. “Hey, you still with me?” He tapped her on the shoulder. She didn’t respond.
His lips set in a tight line, he pushed the accelerator down to the floor as he pulled out his phone and dialed a number. “Hey, darlin’, it’s me,” he said. “I’m gonna need your help. Naw, it’s not me this time. Civilian. She got bit. She’s right on the edge. All right. I’ll see what I can do for her. Get there as soon as you can.”
Late-afternoon thunderheads rolled in over the horizon, an ominous gray, blotting out the sun. A dark line of shadow crept across the landscape. “Aw, shit,” said Alex, “not now. Can I just get a little goddamned sunshine?”
***
When Carmen finally woke, it was dark outside. She was lying on a couch in an unfamiliar room. She felt wet and hot… but somehow shivering cold. She sat up.
Alex was there. “Easy now, darlin’. Just lay back down. You got a real mean fever. And that bite ain’t lookin’ good. They can go either way, and looks like yours went the bad way. What it really needs is some sunlight, but we won’t get none of that for a good eight hours, so you gotta hang on until then. You allergic to any antibiotics?” Carmen shook her head. “That’s real good to hear. I got some sulfa here. Won’t stop the vampirellae, but it’ll help kill any other infection you might get when a fella bites you on the neck.” Carmen put the pills in her mouth. He handed her a glass of water, and she washed them down.
She finished the glass and fell back into a fitful sleep.
Were they dreams or real? Was she awake or asleep? Fantasy blended and warped into reality. She thought Alex was standing over her, wiping her burning brow with a wet cloth, squeezing her hand. She dreamed she had swallowed a spider, and it wanted to eat its way out of her. She felt it crawling around on the inside. And he was there again, tucking her sweat-soaked hair behind her ear with a calloused finger, telling her to hold on. Telling her to live.
Chapter Three
Carmen woke with a start. She experienced a moment of disoriented panic before remembering where she was. She sat up and looked around as the memories came trickling back. She was still on the couch, with a rough army-surplus wool blanket covering her. The room was nearly bare, with just the couch she lay on, a thrift-store coffee table, a few folding chairs, a TV on a TV stand, and a handful of generic prints on the walls.
The first hint of dawn peeked through the blinds. She stood unsteadily, but better than the day before. The fever seemed to have broken during the night. She touched the bandage on her neck and hissed in pain. Unless she touched it, it was a low, constant ache. She realized she was wearing the same clothes, caked with dirt, sweat, and blood. She grimaced.
Carmen wandered barefoot toward the light, through the Spartan living room, and into the kitchen. The only sign of habitation seemed to be a coffee machine and a forest of empty beer bottles. From the kitchen a sliding glass door led to a broad wooden deck, furnished with a cheap white plastic patio set covered in a layer of grime. She stood in the open doorway and looked out.
The sky was gray predawn, the sun still tucked behind the hills. The house sat in a shallow valley, closing off the view on two sides. A distant mountain range loomed in the east. Birch and cottonwood trees dotted the property. Beyond the deck was a rough but green lawn; past that stood a large garage.
Alex was out on the lawn, barefoot, wearing loose fitting cargo pants and a white T-shirt, practicing some sort of martial art. His back was turned.
Carmen stood in the doorway, watching him, her mind working furiously.
Her car keys were sitting on the kitchen table. She snatched them up.
After on
e last glance at Alex, she hurried to the front door, put her hand on the doorknob—and stopped.
Her hand dropped away from the knob. She paused, sighed, and turned around again.
She set the car keys back where she found them. After a moment, she went through the back door and stepped barefoot across the deck. She sat down on the top stair.
His movements were fluid, hypnotic, a dance in slow motion, like seaweed in an ocean current. Without the hat, she could see he was only a few years older than her, perhaps in his early thirties. His tanned face was strong and angular, yet somehow boyish, despite the first hints of smile lines at the corners of his blue eyes. His hair was brown fading to blonde, cut short but badly in need of a trim. She couldn’t help but notice his lean build and the compact muscle that stood out on his arms.
He finished his form and bowed toward the rising sun, then turned and saw her. “‘Morning,” he said. “How you feeling?”
She considered the question for a moment, then shrugged. “I’m alive.”
Alex gave her a measured look. “How’s the fever?”
“Better.” She noticed his tension, how he never went as far as to take his eyes off her.
“You’re just in time to enjoy the sunrise,” he said. “You want breakfast?”
She ran a hand through her greasy hair. “Not really hungry. I’d love a shower, though.”
Alex hesitated. “I’d imagine. Think you’d better wait until we get your neck taken care of. Shouldn’t be much longer. How ’bout some coffee in the meantime?”
Carmen nodded. “Yeah, I’ll take some coffee.”
“I’ll bring it out.”
She sat there, vaguely aware of him watching her from the kitchen window. She looked out over the horizon to the east. The sun brimmed on the low hills and finally spilled over, spreading pink light across the yard. Carmen closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth on her face.
Inside, Alex watched from the kitchen window as the morning sun reached her. He saw her stretch her arms and enjoy the heat. He let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding, and put his pistol back in its holster. While he filled the coffee pot with water from the sink, he watched her lean forward and pull her knees up close to her chest. She moved with a lithe, casual ease, and the contours of her back were visible through the thin black T-shirt. After a long moment, Alex blinked and looked down. The coffeepot was overfull, water spilling back down the drain. He laughed, poured out the excess water, and started the coffee. Then he took out his phone and dialed a number. “Yeah, she’s clean,” he said. “Come on over.” He hung up the phone and opened the window. He yelled, “Sugar?”
She scowled. “Look, I’m not your sugar. My name’s Carmen.”
Alex laughed. “No, no, you want sugar in your coffee?”
After a pause, Carmen said, “Just milk.”
“Sure thing.” A few minutes later, he came out on the deck, now wearing jeans, a white T-shirt, boots, and the battered cowboy hat from the day before. He balanced a plate in one hand and two cups of coffee in the other. He hunkered down on the stair beside her. “I got a friend coming over. She’s gonna take a look at your neck.” He handed her a mug of coffee.
She sipped at it, but otherwise didn’t react.
“Sure, you’re welcome. Don’t mention it. Now, I gotta say”—he talked through a mouthful of scrambled eggs—“I’m curious as all hell about what you were doing out in the desert, creeping around a vampire’s house. Some kind of police business?”
Carmen pulled her knees up closer to her chest. “Yeah, something like that.”
“See, thing is, I went and took a peek at your wallet. ID says, ‘Carmen Carranza,’ deputy with the Mohave County Sheriff’s Department. Way I figure, that puts you a couple hundred miles out of your jurisdiction. And your bag looked like it was packed for a few nights’ stay. I don’t mean to pry, but—”
“Then don’t.”
He put up his hands. “All right, all right. I just want you to know, if you’re in some kind of trouble with the vamps, I can help. It’s sorta what I do.”
Carmen made a quizzical face. “What’s what you do?”
“Shit, you know. Hunt vampires.” Alex grinned stupidly and sat up a little straighter. “I’m a vampire hunter.”
“That’s…so that’s your job?” Carmen looked incredulous. “You hunt vampires.”
Alex nodded. “Yes ma’am. Hunt ’em, kill ’em.”
“Like, full time?”
“All the time.”
She took another sip from the coffee and looked at him sideways. “Forgive me if I’m having a hard time with the concept. Do you make money at this? Do you have a boss?”
Alex laughed. “I’m…an independent contractor. And as far as money, you know what they say, do what you love, and the money follows.”
“I’m sorry, but at this point I can’t help still thinking you’re insane, and vampires are a figment of your diseased imagination. But you did save my life, so I’ll let that slide for now.”
“Fair enough.” Alex leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. In profile, his aquiline nose was slightly upturned, and his lips formed a natural sort of pout. “That’s a start. Shit, I didn’t believe it myself at first. Lotta folks never do. They’d just rather not. Easier going about their lives, not knowing about the things hiding in the dark.” He squinted and looked out toward the horizon. “Lord knows there’s times I wish I didn’t know.”
Carmen cocked her head. “What makes you so sure he was a vampire, anyway? He looked normal enough to me.” She half smirked. “Well, maybe normal is the wrong word. But he was human enough.”
Alex had finished his plate of eggs. He stood up and stretched, his hands in his back pockets, and turned around to face Carmen. “No, he wasn’t. I found about that one from a tip from one of my sources. Told me there was a vampire living out there in the desert. So I staked the place out, and he showed up on the FLIR.”
“FLIR?”
“Forward looking infrared. Heat vision. Normal folks glow like a danged Christmas tree. But vampires read just a couple degrees above room temperature, so they stick out about like antlers on a duck. I watched him for a few days, seein’ if any other vamps was gonna come around. But then you showed up…though I still don’t know why.”
Carmen looked away and blew on her coffee.
“That sorta threw things off,” Alex continued, “I was planning to give it a few more days. Smart thing woulda been to just let him have you. But I guess I ain’t never been that smart. Wished I’d a had a few hours to talk things over with that vamp, see if he could tell me anything worth knowing. But, what with you laying there bleeding out, I figured I’d better just deal with him.”
Carmen made an incredulous face. “Well, thank you for helping me. Sorry I screwed up your…thing.”
“Naw. Weren’t nothin’.”
Alex turned at the sound of tires crunching over the gravel driveway. Carmen noted the hand that unconsciously snaked back to rest on the pistol he kept holstered in the small of his back, as he walked down the gravel path that skirted the house from the back porch to the driveway out front. When Alex saw the driver, he let go of the gun and used his cowboy hat to wave. “Jenny, darlin’! How the hell are you?”
The van stopped in a cloud of dust. It was a nondescript Ford with a two-tone brown paint job, a reinforced bumper, and a row of KC lights. The woman who climbed out was in her mid-thirties. She wore camouflage BDU pants, a black tank top, and a red bandanna around her neck. Her dirty-blond hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Wraparound shades perched on top of her head, above a square-jawed, no-nonsense face, with a spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Muscles stood out on her ranch-tanned arms as she lifted what looked like a large orange tackle box from the passenger seat. Tattoos covered her from shoulders to wrists. “Alex! How’s it going?”
“Good! Real good.” He met her with a hug. “Want a beer or something?”
&nbs
p; “Christ, Alex, it’s seven-thirty in the morning,” she said without any real rancor. “Where is she?”
“She’s around back.” Jen followed Alex back down the gravel path to Carmen, who now stood on the deck, leaning against the wooden railing. Carmen watched Jen warily as she came into view.
Alex said, “Jennifer, this here’s Carmen. Carmen, Jennifer.”
“A pleasure,” said Jen, smiling. “And you can call me Jen.”
“Hello,” said Carmen, guardedly.
Jen climbed the steps of the deck and set her tackle box down. Slowly, like she was approaching a wounded animal, she leaned on the railing next to Carmen. She pointed at the bandages. “So, I heard you had a rough day. I’m a registered nurse. Alex gave me a call and asked me if I could come over and help you out. Do you mind if I take a look?”
Carmen shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
Alex’s cell phone vibrated. He looked at the screen. “You think y’all can take care of yourselves for a little bit? I got some errands to run.”
Jen opened her tool kit and selected a pair of bandage scissors. “Yeah, we’ll be fine.”
***
A nondescript gray sedan sat parked in a dirt turnout along a lonely blacktop highway. At the far edge of the turnout ran a low stone wall that overlooked a scenic vista. A brown sign with white lettering explained the significance of the spot, for anyone who cared. A man in mirrored sunglasses and a brown suit coat stood and smoked a cigarette, indifferent to the brown sign or the magnificent sunrise unfolding behind him. He was bald, with a lean, hawkish face. The wind played with the tails of his coat. He examined the dust on his oxfords with absent distaste then looked up again at the sound of an engine.
Alex pulled his old pickup truck off the highway and parked next to the sedan. The wind whisked away the dust from his passage. He got out and stood up, stretched, and rearranged the cowboy hat on his head.
“Alex,” said the man.
“Hey, Cooper.” Alex picked up a cardboard box from the passenger seat and approached the other man.