I stared at him. "Shit. We're running out of gas."
He nodded. "Just about. And no marinas in sight. I can stretch it if we don't use any unnecessary power."
"Can you power the GPS long enough to maneuver us over the Orpheum?"
The Mesoamerican Bat-demon stared at me. "Do you have a plan?" Clearly the same obstacles were going through his mind that I had grappled with twenty minutes earlier.
"I'd say everything is a work-in-progress, right now," I said, willing my left eye to stop twitching.
"If we don't conserve fuel and we don't find more of it, we won't be afloat that much longer," he said pointedly. "We're wallowing in heavier swells and taking on water more quickly than back on the sheltered Ouachita. If I don't run the pumps every twenty minutes or so we'll be on the bottom inside of an hour. To run the pumps, I have to have fuel. Once that's gone, so are we."
I stared out over the water and noticed the light was lessening. Checked the position of the sun and, almost as an afterthought, checked my watch: 4:53 p.m. Sundown was awhile away but, barring a miracle, we'd be in the dark all too soon.
Where was the Coast Guard? In the aftermath of a disaster of this magnitude they should have had a fleet here by now; a flotilla at the very least. Zotz had issued a general Mayday while I was in the water but the radio—on battery back-up while the generator was off-line—remained ominously silent. It was as if a great tsunami had come along and washed everything and everyone away and we were the only living beings for a thousand miles.
Above the waterline, anyway.
Feeling helpless and impotent, I went back down to my cabin, cursing Hindu and Japanese and Outer Space so-called higher beings who seemed very big on idea of delegating but more than a little hazy on the concepts of motivation, training, and providing proper materials and equipment.
Liban was awake but looking deathly pale when I entered. Setanta glanced at me and left without a word.
I sat on the edge of the bed. "How are you feeling?"
"Faded," she whispered. "Setanta said we arrived?"
I nodded, seeing the questions in her eyes. "We're in New Orleans. Maybe a hundred feet above the former Riverwalk. The city's under water. The storm got here first."
She reached out and squeezed my hand. It was more of a twitch than the actual application of pressure. "I am sorry. Opening a path through the waters is a difficult thing. I have never done it so far from the sea and where so much land crossed back and forth between. It distorted the pathway. The last time I did such a thing, sea-going craft were much different. Sailing vessels are much different than ships employing modern engines and technology: it felt as if I were drawing two vessels in my wake. And then I think I may have passed through a portion of the storm, itself. It was unexpected . . . powerful. I was thrown the wrong way on the final approach. We may have lost days instead of hours. I do not know. Everything became confused before I passed out."
"You brought us through safely," I said, squeezing her hand gently in return. "That's all that counts," I added, trying to be gracious. It wasn't easy. Somewhere in the back of my brain a part of me was screaming. It had started when I first realized that New Orleans wasn't merely drenched but fully dead and drowned. Meanwhile, another part of me was running around in circles and babbling, trying to figure out what to do next, what to do about Lupé and the others. Holding someone's hand and mouthing platitudes while the rest of the world was coming undone was not high on my To Do List at the moment.
"Rest now," I said. "Get your strength back. Is there anything I can get for you?"
She gave me a long look. "Perhaps later . . ." she said with a weak smile.
"Yeah," I said, getting back up and backing toward the door. That would be about the time I would be wanting a late night snack.
I went down the corridor and into the galley. The spare blood packs were in the fridge, not the freezer. I tore open two of them with my teeth and wolfed the contents. Crammed the rest in the freezer figuring they'd keep a little better there even with the power off.
Then I pulled the Smith & Wesson Magnum revolver and the sawed-off Mossberg out from under the sink. Checked and loaded each. Pulled harness and holster from the side cabinet. If the Coast Guard came calling I could pitch the shotgun over the side. If the Deep Ones came calling I'd be more adaptive to the situation. I went to the scuba lockers and began preparing spear guns.
* * *
The first boat appeared a quarter of an hour later. The second was right behind it.
They came out from behind the Plaza Tower and approached us in a long, lazy arc as if to look us over before coming in close.
Of course, that gave us the opportunity to do the same. Our field glasses to their field glasses. One quick look and I ducked down hoping that I had gotten the better look, first.
After a quick conference, positioning us so their line-of-sight was spoiled, Camazotz reconfigured his appearance to a tall Asian-looking guy. Setanta—well, we figured he was the least likely to be recognized. And I slipped down the back stairway to raid the scuba locker and seal the Smith & Wesson in a waterproof baggie. Then I grabbed a facemask and fins, lowered the dive ladder, and eased off the stern and into the water as the two boats split their approaches to bracket us.
Fortunately they didn't try to bookend us on both sides. The first cut its engines across the New Moon's bow while the other pulled along our port side. I was able to use the houseboat for cover but I lost a flipper trying to put the mask on in the water. Then nearly lost the gun while strapping the diver's sheath knife to my calf. This was ridiculous. I ducked down and swam beneath the New Moon's keel and considered which of the two speedboats offered the most advantages to a stealth approach.
Never mind pain, serious injury, or death: if I pulled this off, Zotz would never believe my National Guard credentials again . . .
The visiting craft had the long sleek look of cigarette boats, the kind favored by rich playboys or coastal smugglers. One might assume the former based on the assortment of bikinied beauties on display, lying out on the exaggerated forward decks just ahead of the raked windscreens. They were strategically placed to draw the eye away from the clutch of bristly-faced toughs crowding the narrow cockpit and packing heat under their nylon windbreakers. I didn't need to see Johnny Depp's face to know that piracy was still alive and well on the high seas.
I had, however, seen three familiar faces on board the first Go-Fast boat. Faces that meant bargaining for some extra fuel was going to be a very dicey proposition.
So I continued my underwater swim, passing under the keel of the as they glided to stop some thirty feet off of the New Moon's port side.
I eased my head up on the far side of the new vessel as a familiar voice called: "Ahoy the boat!" No one on board would be looking away from the New Moon as that was their intended target and I was further hidden by the overhang of the V-shaped hull.
"Ahoy, yourself," I heard Zotz call back. And as they engaged in a totally bullshit conversation about who each other was, where they had come from, and where they were headed, I worked my way aft where the big engines and down-swept design would give me easier boarding access.
"I don't think I've ever seen a houseboat like yours out on the open ocean," the would-be pirate leader was saying. "The New Moon. Is it yours?"
"Naw." Make-over Asian Zotz chuckled crudely. "I borrowed if off some guy who said he had better things to do." That had their attention. I was able to pull myself up on the stern in time with the swell so that no one noticed any change in the boat's balance. Preternatural reflexes and now enhanced by nanite technology: sometimes I can do something right. The bimbos as well as the goons on the other boat were totally absorbed in watching the houseboat for any kind of a response.
"Yeah?" said pirate leader guy chuckling even more nastily than Zotz. "And what would that be?"
I peeled the waterproof bag open as Zotz shrugged. "He said something about having to deal with a bunch of piss
ant werewolves."
Pirate leader guy stopped chuckling and if I thought the pirate wannabes on both boats were attentive before, they were twice as attentive, now. "What did you say?" the leader growled menacingly.
Zotz leaned upon the upper deck's railing where the Mossberg and several spear-guns were cached. I knew Setanta would be waiting in the salon, fingering Michael's great sword and waiting for the opportunity to repel some boarders.
"I said the guy who owns this boat said something about having to go deal with a bunch of pissant werewolves," Zotz repeated with a smile. "He said he'd warned some dude to stay the hell away from him and his people and this dude was just too stupid to pay attention."
"He said that, did he?" Pirate leader's lips pealed back in a manner than might have suggested a grin. But didn't.
"Sure did," Zotz nodded. "Said this dude needed some sense beat into him. Said it was probably a waste of time and this dude should just be shot down like a dog but . . ." Zotz shrugged.
"Really!" Hackles were rising all over the boat. Even the eye candy wearing the dental floss were starting to look a little feral. "Too bad I missed him. I'd really like to have a conversation with this fellow."
Compared to my silent arrival on board, the cocking of the Smith & Wesson's hammer was like a thunderclap. Everyone turned but turned carefully as there was no mistaking the sound.
"Hello Gordon," I said. "Miss me? Because, from the looks of things, you decided you just couldn't stay away."
Everyone took a step back.
The funny thing was none of them were particularly worried about the monster handgun I was waving at them. Maybe if I told them the on-board ammo was silver frag-loads with sterling birdshot packed in a colloidal suspension medium I'd get a little more respect. Maybe. But for now, it was enough that The Bloodwalker was in the midst and all it took was a single scratch for me to go through them like a scythe through ripe wheat.
"What's the matter, Gordo?" I taunted, seeing the sick look on his once smug features. "Figured you were safe as long as I was on my boat and you were on yours? What was the plan? Sink the New Moon or set her ablaze or blow her out of the water—anything to destroy me from a safe distance with the added insurance of an ocean-sized moat between us?"
"Cséjthe . . ." the would-be pirate chief stammered, ". . . we didn't know you would be here."
I nodded. "Sure you did. You knew my boat was in the area from our distress calls and you ran a visual check on your approach. You had the intel, even if you've never actually seen the New Moon, yourself. You hailed us under false pretenses with a false I.D. You've got scantily clad girls draped across your bow as bait and distraction—at least one of which is being held against her will. Cut her loose now." I turned to the fourth were. "And you brought Fenris along."
"Bloodwalker," he growled.
"Trucebreaker," I growled right back at him. I turned back to Gordon. "Who has seen my boat. Been on it, even. Enjoyed my hospitality. Then set me up to kill me. Was all set to kill his buddy Volpea, too. Fenny, how about cutting Volpea loose?"
"I don't—" the big wolf man began.
"No!" I yelled, turning back to him. "No stalling. No pretending to be stupid—you're stupid enough!" I waved the gun again. It probably bears pointing out at this stage that gun waving is a precise art. It's really more of a waggle. A short, controlled movement designed to get your adversaries attention while still making sure that you both know the end of the barrel doesn't stray much from their heads or their hearts. Random waving about—in which your gun barrel wanders far a field—is the quickest way to make the points that 1) you are an idiot and 2) you are about to become a dead idiot.
Still, it wasn't so much the gun that was keeping my adversaries at bay as the knowledge that the first were to jump me would end up with me inside his head and using his flesh as a suicide weapon against the rest. Even more effective a threat than a machine gun much less a six-shot revolver.
"I am going to explain myself once and only once and then things are going to get really bloody because I am oh-so-easily pissed right now," I continued. "You tried to kill me and I would be thrilled—just tickled pick—to have the slightest excuse to blow a silver-ringed, fist-sized hole in your traitorous guts. If I repeat myself it will be to the next pissant were in line after I've blown away anyone I even begin to think might annoy me. Are we clear?"
He held up his hands. "She's cuffed. I'm going to reach into my pocket for the key."
I gestured with the gun. "Please remember that I'm hoping you'll do something stupid."
He didn't. Do something stupid, that is. At least until he had finished unlocking the camouflaged steel cuffs that had held Volpea a prisoner on the forward deck, stretched out in all of her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition glory. She stretched, rubbing her wrists and working out some shoulder kinks. Then punched him, knocking him overboard.
She looked at a life preserver and a length of rope then at me. "Sorry. Do you want him back?"
I shook my head. "You just saved me the trouble. Can he swim?"
"Yes."
"Pity." I turned to the others. "Now. I have a few questions. Same rules apply. Where is Marie Laveau?"
"I don't know."
I pointed the Smith & Wesson at his head, bracing my right wrist with my left hand. "I hope the next person on this boat is more forthcoming when I repeat the question."
"I really don't know!" he shouted, throwing up his hands. "Things have fallen apart these past three days. The old witch has a new demesne, now! The rest who survived have to fight for scraps!" He half threw a fist toward the deeper waters of the Gulf. "Word is, she's out there, somewhere! All I know is I haven't seen her since the storm hit. We're on our own here."
"So," I considered, easing the pressure off of the trigger. "You're not hunting me on her account any longer."
"Doesn't change your value as a bargaining chip," Volpea elaborated. "Gordon and company can either stay here and grow fins or try to bargain their way into some other demesne where they're likely to be killed or allowed on as the lowest of the low."
I nodded. "Killing The Bloodwalker, badass vampire nemesis, would give them the status and street cred to make their own deals."
"Can't blame a guy for trying," he said.
"Can't I?" My finger was back on the trigger. "If you don't know where Marie Laveau is, maybe you can tell me where my people are."
A hideous expression crossed the werewolf leader's face. "That's easy," he sneered. "Dead. Drowned. Sealed under the Orpheum Theatre in a watery tomb!"
I knew it, of course. But having Gordon confirm it with such evident relish just hit me all the harder at that moment. I wanted to kill him for it.
And I wanted them to kill me and let it all be over.
"That's not true!" Volpea said, stepping over the windscreen and down into the pilot's area. "They got out!"
"Shut up, bitch!" Gordon snarled. He turned back to me. "Don't you think she won't lie to you and tell you what you want to hear? They're dead, I tell you. All of them. And they died like rats in a storm drain! And you!" he shouted, turning back to the statuesque woman, "mind your place!"
Volpea froze in place. Then turned slowly toward him. "Mind my place? Mind my place!" Faster than the strike of a cobra, her arm lashed out and her fingernails raked his face. "Why Gordon," she cooed, all of the animosity suddenly gone from her voice, "you're bleeding! And so close to The Bloodwalker, too!"
That's when the radio crackled to life.
"Hello? Hello? I thought I heard a voice awhile ago . . ."
Gordo touched his torn cheek and when he saw the blood on his fingers, his eyes grew wide and he glanced from the radio to me with a profound look of terror.
" . . . was that you, Zotzalahal Chamalcan? This is Sammathea D'Arbonne on board the Spindrift."
"I read you, Mama Samm," Zotz radioed back. "Are you all right? Are the others with you?"
"They were," she answered, sounding strangely d
istorted. Either she was very far away or something was wrong with her radio. "They've been taken. I was able to hide until they were gone but now everyone else—I can't stay on the radio, they may come back at any moment. Is Mister Chris with you? Can you put him on?"
"He's here. Sort of. But he's a little busy right now," Zotz answered. "I think he's about to beat the crap out of a bunch of werewolves and kill their leader."
Mama Samm's response was lost in noise of the former pirate chief vaulting over the railing and hitting the water. I looked around the boat at the others and said: "Well? What are you waiting for? He's your leader—go follow him." I had to wave the gun one last time even though it wasn't the gun they were most afraid of.
"No," I elaborated; "in the water."
I walked forward and picked up the microphone as eleven more splashes drowned out the GPS coordinates that Mama Samm was relaying to my demon helmsman.
"You sit tight," I told her, pushing the mic button, "we'll be there as soon as humanly possible."
"Inhumanly," Zotz kibitzed.
"Yeah. Listen," I told him, "we've got two fast, seaworthy, and presumably well-fueled boats here. Let's offload what we think we'll need from the New Moon and turn in the rest to the insurance company next month. I want all of us to be on our way to those coordinates in ten minutes, tops."
"Aye, aye."
I dropped the mic in its cradle and turned around to look at Volpea. She was dressed much the same as when she had tried to seduce me on the top deck of my houseboat a few days before. Just wearing a little less, now, without the shirt.
"You're still on the boat," I said.
"Gordon is no longer my Alpha," she said.
"Well, it's sort of my boat, now."
"Well, I sort of figured that."
"Volpea . . ."
"The way I see it," she said, folding her arms in such a way as to strain the fabric of her bikini top, "is you're about to deliver one of three speeches."
"One of three?" I muttered.
"Yes. Either you're about to tell me that people who join your demesne share incredible risks and that I would be safer going my own way—"
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