Loyalty? To whom? Your ex-fiancée who can't stand for you to touch her? Who refuses to see you or speak to you? Or Deirdre, who's got her own medical problems? And is totally out of the picture unless Marie Laveau can figure out what to do with that malignant growth on her shoulder?
That's just the problem with relationships these days, I volleyed back. Too many people ready to abandon ship on the first patch of rough water.
Whereas you're so ready to go down with the ship that you won't even "man the pumps." No wonder you're in a funk: you haven't gotten any for the better part of a year!
I'm not depressed because I'm celibate.
Celibate! Celibate! Dance to the music! the other voice singsonged to an old Three Dog Night tune.
Clearly channeling one's sex drive into any kind of serious conversation was problematical when one's neurotransmitters were out of whack.
Yeah, so contemplate the bikini-clad babe that's practically in your lap, dog!
Lapdog? She's one of Laveau's enforcers. She's practically the enemy.
So? First rule of strategy: know your enemy.
It was obvious that "the enemy" was in shape. All sorts of delightful shapes laid out and on display. The muscles in her arms and legs had better size and definition in repose than a reasonably fit female athlete would display while flexing. Her abdomen was knurled with knobs and striations of muscle. A topaz-colored gem in a silver setting dangled from a ring piercing the deep whorl of her navel. She retained just enough body fat to soften the angles and edges toward a more feminine ideal. In fact, the twin triangles of her swimsuit top bulged sufficiently to suggest artificial enhancement but I knew that lycanthropes and implants don't mix.
If I have to explain that to you, you might as well look elsewhere for stories less challenging to your—ahem—intellect.
Too bad you can't go out there and offer to rub some more lotion on her b—
She started to stir and I finally found the will power to back away from the sliding glass door.
The water on the stove was starting to hiss and steam so I dropped in the blood pack to begin the warming process. Perhaps I should have skipped the culinary hassles and tried it cold: I was feeling a bit overheated, myself, at the moment.
It's not lust; it's the predatory programming of the necrophagic virus . . .
Keep telling yourself that.
Shut up.
I turned the burner down to the barest flicker of flame and opted to let the bag steep for a while. If Volpea was sunning herself on out on the bow, then Zotz had to be around somewhere. He'd never leave me alone on the boat while I was sleeping and certainly not with Crescent City muscle on board.
I found him at the other end of the boat, also outside, which meant he was in a more trusting mood than usual. I joined him on the aft deck, under an awning that provided enough shade for the both of us. As long as I kept my visit short, that is. Even with direct cover, peripheral sunlight is a bitch over time and cumulative. But this little tableau was too choice to take in at a distance.
The human-looking Zotz had ensconced himself in a deck chair next to a plastic cooler. He had fired up a stogie, popped the tab on a can of beer, and was flicking a fishing line over the side as I arrived. I sat on the plastic cooler and took in this bucolic scene. "When did this start?"
He took a drag on his cigar, a pull on his can of beer, and let out a little line on his reel. It was awkward, almost suspenseful, and oddly fascinating to watch: inhuman reflexes multitasked processes that were clearly unfamiliar to him and yet carefully studied and practiced at the same time.
Plus he only had two hands to manage three objects.
"The juju woman believes that I should not hunt," he answered, juggling the fishing pole, aluminum can, and cigar. "That it is counterintuitive to my quest for redemption."
"Really?" I asked. "She said hunting was counterintuitive?"
"In so many words," he said. "So. Many. Words. Punctuated with bouts of punching and slapping." Another puff, another pull. "But she didn't say anything about fishing."
"Fishing," I said.
"Your Bible has Jesus saying: 'Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.'"
"You told her that?"
"Of course not. I have no wish to be pummeled further, even if it doesn't really hurt. Physically, anyway." He pulled the line in a bit. "But fishing is enough like hunting to . . ." he considered, ". . . satisfy certain urges. And it teaches me a little more about being human."
"Really?" I gee-whizzed. "Tell me more!"
"I am still learning. It is touted as a sport but it is really a religion, no? I have observed other congregants on the river and upon the so-called television sports shows. There are some variations but the similarities are greater than the differences." He waved his cigar. "The burning of incense." Sloshed the beer in his can. "The sacramental wine." He reeled his line back in. "And, of course, the meditative trance. One might achieve the Zen-like state of samadhi were it not for the occasional interruptions of the fish." He checked his hook. Impaled upon the barbed, j-shaped metal was a disintegrating squiggle still identifiable as a Gummi worm.
"Catch much?" I asked, keeping my voice even.
He shook his head. "The problem may be my bait. Or, as the sportsmen refer to it, the 'lure.'"
"Ya think?"
He waggled the tab key off of his beer can and knotted it onto the line just above the hook. "Maybe I can find a feather or two tomorrow along the shore. It will be about time to change worms by then." He flicked the rod with a surprising amount of grace, sending the line back out into the river's flow.
We sat in silence awhile.
"Any word on Jamal?" I asked.
He gave me a look that said: you know I would have told you if there was any news at all. "Nope," he said.
"Any new thoughts on what the message means?"
He repeated The Look.
"Me neither," I said.
"Why are you up?"
"I got thirsty."
Zotz gestured with the rod. "Blood in the fridge."
"Heating some up. But I'm not so sure it's a good idea to be upping my intake right now."
"Why not? It's what vampires do."
"I'm not a vampire! At least, not yet. And increasing my intake may be messing with my head right now."
He smiled, white teeth gleaming sharply in the shade. "Fishing is good for thinking. But it can be good not to think overmuch. Perhaps you should try a six-pack of mood enhancement."
"I've got enough crap in my body," I growled, "without adding to my biochemical imbalances."
"And, of course, you wouldn't want to relinquish any personal control."
"Oh yeah," I said bitterly. "Because staying in control is so important. Look how well it's working for me, so far."
"You're alive," he countered mildly, taking a puff on his cigar. "You've outwitted and survived enemies that have been the scourge of cities, of nations, for generations." Another puff. "Vampires fear you, the dead revere you." Puff. "And, personally, I think you're a helluva guy." Puff. "Not that you don't irritate like a pernicious rash sometimes." Puff.
I blinked. Ran through a number of responses in my head. In the end I just grunted. Depression and exhaustion: the two great levelers of social conversation.
Zotz took a long meditative draw on his stogie. "Did she really say 'churl'?"
I nodded, staring off into the deadly glare twixt sky and water. "Yep. Just goes to show, you can take the girl out of the fifteenth century but you can't take the fifteenth century out of the girl."
"Was that the moment you knew she was a ringer?"
"No. Just before that. I brought Shakespeare into the conversation—"
"Don't tell me, let me guess," he said, flicking the line back out into the river. "You did some fishing of your own with the old 'Madness in Hamlet' conundrum."
I nodded slowly. "How did you know?"
"Are you kidding? It's a classic! Depressed, tormente
d Dane runs around a dark, drafty castle ranting like a madman and committing murders in the first and third person. But the big myst is whether Hams is really bonkers or just holding onto the horizon effect of his sanity by acting out."
I rolled my head trying to loosen the kink that a month's worth of straightjacket-wear had strapped across my neck. "Yeah, I figured if she was a legitimate shrink, she'd recognize a simple, first-year-psych-student talking point." I held up a finger. "First, ghost or no ghost, he comes to the conclusion that dear old dad was murdered." I held up a second finger. "Then he figures out that Uncle Claudius did the dirty deed." Third finger. "And that mommy dearest helped 'off' dad so she could 'boff' Claude . . ."
"Talk about putting the 'fun' in 'dysfunctional,'" Zotz interjected, "vice is nice but incest is best."
I thought about pointing out that Gertrude hadn't actually committed incest by strict definition but I had a final point to make: I held up my fourth finger. "And, as the prince can add two plus two, it's becoming increasingly clear that the new king can subtract one from three and Hamlet's likely to inherit his late father's medical condition."
"You mean deadical condition."
"Precisely."
Zotz took a pull on his beer and set the can aside to play with his line a little more. "So, back to the famous madness in Hamlet problem: which side of the debate do you fall on? Genuine psychosis? Or faking it?"
I shrugged. Without the straightjacket it was nice, almost pleasurable. I resolved to do it more often. "I always favored the 'crazy like a fox' viewpoint."
Zotz nodded. "Good cover. Kept the King from ordering Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to go all Pulp Fiction prematurely."
I shook my head. "Yeah, but it was more than that. It's the concept that Hamlet had to act crazy to keep from going crazy. The crazier he acted, the saner he became."
The demon eyed me. "That would explain a great deal."
"You think?"
"In terms of your coping mechanisms, that is."
"Thanks a lot, Bats."
"Don't mention it, Half'n'half. You're a prince, too—but you're reading the wrong play."
"What do you recommend? Macbeth?"
He flicked the line out over the river again. He was getting pretty good at it. Of course he was getting a lot of practice since he couldn't really be catching anything with Gummi worms and aluminum can pull-tabs. "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
I made a noise down deep in my throat. A little deeper and it would have been an actual growl. "Elves. Faeries. Sprites. Pixies." I sighed. "Pink elephants on parade . . ."
"Don't worry, Dumbo," he said, "now that we have a couple of names and an idea of the general nomenclature, I can narrow the focus of my research."
I stood back up. "Good to know you'll be doing more than checking out online porn at the library."
"We also serve who sit and surf."
The tip of Zotz's fishing pole suddenly made like a dowsing rod: it dipped once, twice, three times. "Looks like I've finally caught something."
"I don't believe it." I stared at the line gone taut, angling off into the grey green waters of the river. "It's got to be a snag."
"It's pulling on the line."
I shook my head. "Maybe it's a tire . . . an old boot. A snapping turtle?"
He got up and walked to the edge of the deck as he reeled in the line. "Grab that net, would you?"
I picked up the landing net next to the cooler and joined him at the deck's edge. There was just enough peripheral shade to keep me safe if I didn't lean way out. "What are you going to do? Cook it or eat it raw?"
He shook his head as the line decreased its angle and approached the side of the boat. "Catch and release. The thrill of the hunt is enough."
Given the mercury and PCB levels hereabouts that was probably not such a bad idea. I knelt down to assist in the final stage of capture.
The fishing pole bowed down as if Zotz had hooked a serious game fish. A channel cat? Suddenly the pressure slacked off for a second and he leaned over to see if he had lost his fish. The pressure returned with a vengeance just a moment later and a sharp tug caught him by surprise. He was overbalanced and tumbled into the turgid waters.
"Zotz?" I gingerly knelt down and gauged my closeness to the deck's edge. While his batlike form might seem inimical to an early morning plunge, he had lived at the bottom of a sunless pool for more than a thousand years. Maybe that's why he'd made little splash and less sound going in. A few minutes in a freshwater river wasn't going to inconvenience him any.
Vampires, on the other hand, don't fare well in watery environments—hence the old "don't cross running water" proscription. Which was why living on a houseboat made a certain kind of twisted sense when undead assassins made occasional house calls.
Of course, I wasn't too keen on falling in as my own buoyancy issues were seriously impaired these days. So, living on top of a floaty moat: a mixed blessing, at best.
I reversed the net and extended the handle as an improvised handhold, expecting Zotz to break the surface any moment.
I had to wait.
The eyes that came up and peered at me from just below the surface looked like his. At first.
Inhuman. Large. Glowy, even.
But where Camazotz's demon eyes were fiery lanterns lit with red flames from a hell of coals and brimstone, these orbs were lit from a colder realm, a cool luminescence that knew neither warmth nor passion.
A head broke the surface of the Ouachita River. And then another: fish-heads.
Fish-heads?
Roly-poly fish-heads!
Bigger than bowling balls and disturbingly humanoid in appearance!
An arm came out of the water. It was gray-green and mottled in the manner of something amphibian. The hand that grasped the edge of the deck was clawed and webbed, looking more like a mitten fabricated out of neoprene and fishhooks than a human appendage.
I duck-walked backwards as the Creature from the Black Lagoon's second cousin, twice-removed, started to haul itself up out of the water and onto the deck of my boat. No "request permission to come aboard" or "may I have a moment of your time to share the good news of Neptune's gospel?" Just up and over and slither on board as I stood back up and unsnapped the safety strap on my shoulder holster. The second fish-man followed right behind the first.
They hunched over like a pair of aquatic Quasimodos, seemingly unsure as to whether to stand erect or scuttle about on all fours. Rows of gill-like openings pulsed along the sides of their scaly necks and their gaping, lipless mouths revealed rows of tiny sharp teeth.
I pulled out the Glock and backed up a little more, wondering what was keeping my giant Mesoamerican, water-spawned bat-demon down so long.
I wasn't too keen on the most likely explanation.
Fish-face number one looked from me to the tackle box and back again. Fish-face number two looked past my shoulder, trying for the old fake-out, there's-something-behind-you look.
I wasn't falling for any of that. "So," I said, pointing the automatic at one and then the other, "can I offer you fellows anything? Gummi worms? Silver wad-cutters?"
Something hit me from behind and I stumbled, dropping the gun. Instinctively, I ducked and, as I felt something scrape the back of my head, I threw an elbow back. I heard something snap—it felt more like cartilage than bone.
One fish, two fish; black and blue fish!
Did I mention my preternatural strength and reflexes?
"Sorry, Charlie," I smirked.
Did I mention my underdeveloped prioritization skills?
That gave the two in front of me time to wade in. One on one, I might have gone all Captain Ahab on someone's finny ass. Two on one changed the dynamics and I found myself forced back across the deck. And number three wasn't down for the count. In short order they swarmed me and we all went over the side.
A half second of free fall through direct sunlight and then I smashed into the water with a trio of amphibian airbags to help
cushion the impact.
I remembered to grab a lungful of oxygen on the way in.
Unfortunately a clawed hand tore five bloody furrows in my side and made me gasp as we hit: I expelled air and swallowed river water. Not good! A little preparatory hyperventilation and I might be able to hold my breath for three minutes. This was assuming I wasn't engaged in some strenuous activity like fighting for my life against the sushi squad, here. Sucking water on my way down had seriously cut into my onboard reserves.
And while ten . . . now fifteen . . . now twenty feet of water helped filter the killing rays of the sun, it also obscured reference points beyond a couple of yards in any direction. My only chance of getting out of here without drowning was to walk out. Quickly. Swimming was out of the question: vampires can't.
And there's no such thing as the undead man's float.
As soon as my feet touched bottom, I began to move. Even if I didn't know which direction I was going, standing still was going to get me nowhere.
And then the fight recommenced.
Well, not so much a fight now as a clumsy dance routine in slow motion. Arm thrusts and jabs were the rule—not swinging fisticuffs—and the best I could do was keep two of them off me at a time. They had claws, I didn't. They had sharp, pointy teeth; mine were blunt, dull, and I would only drown that much quicker if I opened my mouth.
A giant vise started screwing shut against my chest and I knew that I was already down to my last minute or so of cognitive functionalism: the remainder of my life would be metered out with a stopwatch, not a calendar. Escape options were fading off the table.
Face it, Cséjthe: the best you can hope for is to make someone sorry they've picked this particular fight.
Unfortunately, these things were in their element, now, and I wasn't. They had all the time in the world. All they had to do was keep me under, stop me from moving toward shore, and let the water do its work. But they continued to nip and scratch and lunge as if mere drowning wasn't enough. My blood hazed the already murky water and I realized something with a shock: there was a part of me that seemed almost glad of it!
Well, why not? As Shakespeare once penned: "All that lives must die, / Passing through nature to eternity."
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