Someday I'd find the Iraqi vampire who had forced me into this existence. I'd repay him by chaining his undead carcass to a cement mixer and rolling it into a volcano.
"I wouldn't be a gracious host if I didn't accommodate my guests. There's horse blood in the refrigerator. Let me heat it in the microwave."
I was a poor guest but I couldn't ignore the guilt that festered inside of me like a tumor.
Bob returned from the kitchen with a plastic carafe. I opened the carafe and poured. Steaming red blood flowed over the spaghetti and cutlets. The aroma restored my good mood. I stabbed a cutlet with my fork and smeared it in the blood.
Bob grabbed a bag of human blood and tore the corner. His fangs protruded from under his upper lip. "Not as good as sinking my teeth into an unsuspecting human's neck and drawing a fresh meal. But who gets that opportunity these days?"
He squeezed the bag over his pasta and cutlets. The red fluid spread across his plate like marinara sauce. "I brought these samples from a blood-donor clinic in Colorado Springs. Part of an evangelical Christian workshop for teens where the young women pledged to remain virgins until marriage."
"So that's the blood of innocent maidens?"
"As innocent as you'll find these days." Bob twirled the bloody spaghetti over his fork.
Bob was a good cook, and the meal soothed me. I finished the cutlets, emptied the carafe over my plate, and sponged the blood with bread.
"You have a good appetite," he said. "Vampires shouldn't live on blood alone. The pasty-faced look is the result of an incomplete diet. I spiced the meat with Saint-John's-wort and royal bee jelly." He squinted at me. "Your complexion looks almost human. You use a Dermablend foundation?"
"It's a vampire's best friend," I replied. "That and Maybelline."
"We could talk makeup tips all night like schoolgirls, but I'd prefer to learn why you're in Denver."
Down to business. "You know I'm a private investigator," I said. "I've taken an assignment for the Department of Energy."
Bob put his fork down. His aura brightened several watts. He removed his contacts. The camaraderie disappeared from his eyes, replaced by the angry glow of his tapetum lucidum. "What did they hire you for?"
So far I had spurned Bob's main course of human blood and now threw acid on the insult by provoking a reaction as if he'd caught me stealing. If Bob were to have confidence in me, I had to make him understand, so I told him about the nymphomania at Rocky Flats.
He gulped his Manhattan. The Dermablend may have hid the change in Bob's complexion, but the more I spoke the brighter his aura became. "I don't like this. You're in danger."
"How so?"
"Things have changed for us, Felix. Once upon a time, we could live in a castle, guarded by pathetic minions, and swoop out at night to feed on the necks of the local wretches. Now humans have technology. Their computers and DNA testing can track us across continents. They don't need wooden stakes, they have assault rifles. A trail of desiccated corpses was once a monument to our power. Today, just one body with puncture wounds in the neck is enough to send a taskforce of forensic pathologists and district prosecutors on our trail."
"I don't intend to bite anyone at Rocky Flats, so don't worry, Bob."
"How many humans have you fanged?"
"Fanged? You mean converted?"
Bob snapped his fingers impatiently. "Yes, yes."
What business was this of his, anyway? I hesitated to answer. "None."
"And how many necks have you sucked on?"
"I've bitten three people."
"I thought you didn't like human blood."
"I had to subdue them. I didn't feed."
Bob stared pensively. "Your behavior is irrational and unhealthy. Preying on humans and drinking their blood is our nature."
"And if I don't? Am I going to get kicked out of the vampire's union?"
Bob got up from his chair and prepared another Manhattan. "By refusing to drink human blood, you're turning away from your vampire side, the source of your strength. If you don't drink human blood, you'll lose your powers. It's what nourishes the kundalini noir."
"Blood, any blood, is all we need."
"As if I don't know what I'm talking about," he said. "Why did you come here tonight?"
"Dinner. To meet you. To learn."
"Then listen and learn. I was fanged in 1694. I haven't done it all, but I've seen enough to know that it takes some effort not to give in to hopeless cynicism about this cycle of betrayal and death between us and humans."
Bob drank from his Manhattan. "It's a restless existence, this life as a vampire. Even if you come to a cordial arrangement with your human neighbors, how long can you stay in one place before they become suspicious as to why you don't age and wither as they do? This gift of immortality becomes a heavy iron yoke. You'll see."
This allusion to the tragic life of a vampire ruined my appetite, and I let the remaining blood congeal on my plate. "Perhaps, but I've got a lot to experience before I become a jaded old bloodsucker."
"Like myself?"
I knew better than to answer.
"We fill a need for humans," Bob said. "This terror of being preyed upon excites them, it breaks the ennui of their dreary lives. That's the mysterious beauty of this symbiotic relationship that binds us. You know the erotic allure of submission. The offering of a bare neck is not much different than opening one's legs. Both are sensual, powerful. I'm sure you've done women. And if you haven't already, you'll get rid of your lingering homophobic reservations and do men, as well."
I looked around Bob's spartan accommodations. "And where are your women, your men?"
"I'm staying celibate this decade. After a hundred years or so, fondling genitalia and plugging orifices for the sake of an orgasm loses its novelty."
"So I've got a while before I get bored with sex?"
"Don't get flip. Because then you'll get complacent. Let me tell you why I fear the Department of Energy. Somebody doesn't want their secrets to get out."
"I've faced worse."
"This isn't some gang of trigger-happy dope smugglers. You'll be dueling with one of the most secretive arms of the federal government."
"You're forgetting that I'm a vampire."
"Don't be too cocky about your powers. Rely on them too often, and they'll give you away. And then"—Bob cupped his hands together—"humans will trap you. An iron cage won't hold us for long, true, but what about a magnetic containment unit, or something more exotic? Look at their prize. A vampire. They'll perform biopsies—no, vivisections—to learn about our immortality and powers of transmutation into other forms, a wolf for example."
Bob touched his eye and then his upper incisors. "They'll carve out your tapetum lucidum and your fangs. You might get into trouble so deep not even the Araneum could help you."
If he had witnessed the paranoid nuttiness at Rocky Flats as I had, perhaps he'd lose this appreciation of DOE's prowess. "You make it seem bleak. I can handle myself."
"I don't understand why you don't quit this assignment. What are you trying to prove?"
"This is my job, for one. Am I supposed to wet my pants and run every time someone yells boo? I'm a vampire, for Christ's sake. Humans are supposed to run away from me. And I agreed to help a friend in trouble."
"A human?"
"Yes, a human."
"Felix, remember who you're dealing with. In the centuries I've been around I've seen humans only get more conniving and cruel. We are supposed to be the evil ones, yet are we worse than a serpent? We are simply predators who dine on human blood. Isn't that how God made us? Look at the real evil in history. The Inquisition, the Holocaust. Vampires didn't highjack airliners and crash them into buildings. Who invented the guillotine? Nerve gas? Humans! And you're working for the very people who massacred hundreds of thousands with the A-bomb in Japan, injected pregnant women with plutonium just to see what would happen, and lied about radioactive fallout poisoning families in Nevada. God knows ho
w much land they contaminated around Denver."
"I'm aware of this."
"Be careful, Felix. If you get caught and the government realizes that they have a vampire, then we as a species are doomed."
Chapter 5
DURING MY FIRST OFFICIAL day as a nuclear health physicist, I spent my time organizing my desk and learning how to find my way around the maze of office trailers. Gilbert Odin met with me to pass along the names of the three women who first exhibited the nymphomania. All of them were radiological control technicians who had been on the same survey team for Building 707. And all three RCTs were still on medical leave. Gilbert cautioned me not to pry into their records at Rocky Flats or I'd alert Security about my investigation.
In the afternoon, I left Rocky Flats and returned to my apartment. First, I had to find the RCTs. Since a private detective deals in information, what better source for that commodity than the Internet? I sent five hundred bucks a month to a private mailbox in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and in return an anonymous freelance hacker offered a keyhole into almost every database hooked into the Internet. I wrote an email asking where the RCTs lived, what kind of cars they drove, and their family status.
While I waited for a reply, I warmed up a half-pint of cow's blood in the microwave. I poured the blood over a slab of focaccia and ate dinner.
A little after six in the evening I got my answers. I decided to begin by questioning the team leader, Tamara Squires.
She was married and had three sons. I received the vehicle plate numbers of a late-model Jeep Wrangler registered to her, plus home and cell phone numbers. And two addresses, one to a house in the suburb of Lakewood, and the other to an apartment, also in Lakewood. Tamara had lived in the house for ten years and for only one month in the apartment.
There could be two Tamara Squireses, but I had my doubts. I guessed that the nymphomania had strained her marriage and that she had moved out of the house and into the apartment. I'd look there first.
I waited until well after dusk before setting out. Vampires are nocturnal predators, so it is then that our powers are strongest.
The apartment was in a small complex, a two-story building overlooking the parking lot. A balcony ran along the front of the second floor. Each apartment had a picture window beside the entrance door. Lights above each door and in the stairwells illuminated the complex.
A white Jeep Wrangler sat in the parking lot. The Jeep's plates matched the numbers I had been provided.
I munched on a breath mint, climbed the stairs to the balcony, and walked to apartment 2C. Before knocking, I scanned the area, listened carefully, and took a couple of deep sniffs. I didn't detect anything unexpected.
I rapped on the door. From inside, footsteps approached. The window blinds parted a crack, not enough for me to see who peeked out.
Her voice muffled by the windowpane, a woman asked, "What do you want?"
"My name is Felix Gomez. I'm with DOE." I slipped a badge from my coat pocket and showed it to her.
"And?"
"I need to talk to you."
"Are you from Security?"
"No."
The window blinds closed. The deadbolt clicked, and the door opened. A brass chain stretched at shoulder level.
A woman, easily six feet tall, looked down through the gap between her door and the jamb. She had an oval-shaped, pretty face that tapered to a delicate chin. A mane of loose blond hair hung past her neck. She appeared to be in her early forties.
"Mrs. Tamara Squires?"
"That's me," she replied irritably. "Isn't this kinda late? Is this so goddamn important that you couldn't call me to the Flats instead? I don't like work following me home. It's wrecked my private life enough already."
"That's why I'm here. I want to talk about what's happened to you."
Her eyes narrowed and scrunched the tiny crow's-feet at her temples. "What's your job?"
"I'm a health physicist."
"With Rad Safety? Industrial Hygiene? I've never seen you before."
I thought I'd be asking the questions. I'm not even in the door and this woman was busting my chops.
"I specialize in post-exposure rehabilitation. I'm from the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. California."
"Yeah, I know where that is."
I gave her my most sincere look. "I'd thought you'd be more comfortable talking here in your home than at Rocky Flats. My apologies, I should've called first."
Tamara's frown disappeared. "You're the first from DOE to ask how I'm doing. And the only one to offer an apology for anything." Closing the door, she unlatched the chain. "Come in."
She was a big, well-proportioned woman. A baggy, light-gray sweatshirt covered her torso and clung to the swell of her large breasts. She wore tight, black leggings that came down to the middle of her well-muscled calves. Her toes peeked from under the straps of blue plastic slides.
Tamara lived in a studio apartment. A twin bed with a quilt and pillows stood against the far wall to the right, opposite a television stand with a TV and DVD player. In the middle of the wall hung a framed photograph of three smiling, adolescent boys. A tiny kitchen with a two-burner stove and a small refrigerator was to my left. Empty cartons of Chinese takeout sat by the sink. Separating the living area from the kitchen was a wooden card table surrounded by padded folding chairs. A brown leather purse, a packet of cigarettes, and an ashtray rested on the table.
"Mi casa, su casa, yada, yada." Tamara walked into the kitchen. She moved in a loose gait, and the exaggerated movement of her hips and shoulders emphasized her meaty curves.
I sat in the chair closest to the door.
She reached into an overhead cabinet and pulled down a bottle of tequila. "Drink?"
"No thanks."
Tamara rolled her eyes. "C'mon. With a name like Gomez you're saying no to tequila? What a wuss."
Lady, you're talking to a vampire.
"I'm on duty."
"Like that's ever stopped anyone from drinking at DOE." She picked a lime from inside the refrigerator and started slicing. She brought the tequila and a plastic tray to the table, carrying sections of lime, a saltshaker, and two shot glasses.
She sat in the other chair and uncapped the tequila. Despite my refusal, Tamara set a shot glass in front of each of us and filled them. She licked the top of her fist and sprinkled salt on the moistened flesh. Lifting her glass, she said, "Salud," and poured the tequila down her throat. She licked the salt on her hand and bit into a piece of lime. After pursing her lips for a moment, she gasped, "Damn, that was good."
I barely sipped my tequila. The salt-and-lime routine had never worked for me, even before I was a vampire.
Tamara lit one cigarette, took a puff, and exhaled. She twisted her mouth to one side in that curious way that smokers do to pretend that they're not stinking up the air with their habit. "What's with the makeup, Felix? Does it have anything to do with you not wanting to drink tequila?" Her smirk added, "you pussy."
Not only was she insulting my status as a vampire, now she was going after my masculinity as well. I had thought I had done a good job with my makeup but apparently not. "It's medication. I have a skin condition."
Her mouth formed an "O," and she feigned embarrassment to have noticed.
Since I was the investigator, it was time for me to earn my pay. "How are you managing on medical leave?"
Tamara poked at the surroundings with her cigarette. "Take a look. I'm doing like shit. I used to live in a four-bedroom split-level two miles from here. Now this shoe box is home."
"I mean health-wise."
"Mental health? At first I was so freaked out that I bought a gun." Tamara stuck her hand in the purse on the table.
Was she after the gun? I got ready to grab her wrist.
She withdrew a plastic, amber-colored bottle. "You know they put us on Prozac."
I relaxed and smiled inwardly at the false alarm.
She dropped the bottle back into her purse and combed a hand
through her hair. "I had to quit taking it. Prozac looks so perfect at first. Everything seems under control. Then you realize that parts of you are missing, I mean parts of your personality. The more you use it, the more it feels like you are dissolving into the air."
I had to fake concern while I steered the conversation to the incident in Building 707. "Are you better now that you don't take it?"
"I feel more complete." She mashed the cigarette into the ashtray. "On the other hand, it's like I'm walking on ice. At any moment something will crack and down I go."
"Go where?"
"Into nympho-land." Tamara hung her head and clutched her fingers. "It sounds funny, doesn't it? Like a joke. A bunch of horny women going out of control." She lifted her head and gave a weak grin. "A man's fantasy, no?"
"For some."
Tamara reached into a pocket of her purse. She opened her hand to show me a gold wedding band. "It cost me my marriage and my family. I couldn't control myself."
This was regrettable for her, but what I needed to know was what had caused the nymphomania. I'd let her volunteer information before I resorted to vampire hypnosis.
Tamara prepared another shot of tequila. Good. The more lubricated she got, the easier my job. She gulped and slammed the empty glass on the table. "But you know what? The truth is, the real goddamn unvarnished truth is that I enjoyed it. I mean, what I can remember."
She closed her eyes and clenched her hands before her face. "It's like you're on fire. You want it."
"It…what?"
Tamara gave me an incredulous stare. "Sex. Everything about sex. Regular sex. Oral sex. Butt sex. Period sex. You go and you go," she pumped her hand, flailing her head, shaking her blond tresses, "until you're sizzling with lust, aware of nothing but your pleasure. Then you float back to reality, and it's like you're washed up on a beach after a storm."
Tamara sighed and lit another cigarette. She brushed a strand of hair from her face. "And I don't mean a nasty cold beach, either, I mean one of those beer-commercial beaches where the water is warm and the sun toasts your skin."
She sucked on a lime and remained quiet for a moment. Looking over her shoulder to the picture on the wall, she said wistfully, "I do miss my boys." She turned back toward me. "Can't say I miss my husband, though. He turned into a real asshole about this and kicked me out of my house and then filed for divorce. Just because I nailed his brother, and the minister."
The Nymphos of Rocky Flats Page 4