Back in my apartment, I scrubbed myself clean and decided to continue my interrogation of the RCTs. I headed for the next address, which turned out to be a town house in Littleton, a suburb southwest of Denver. The dwellings were three-story units scrunched together between juniper hedges. I walked up the narrow porch of my destination and rang the doorbell. The lock on the front door clicked and the door opened.
The woman peeked at me from around the door's edge. Neon-blue eyes were inset within her pretty, square-shaped face, matched in intensity by her crimson lipstick. A terry-cloth headband kept her wavy dark hair from spilling over her forehead. My libido piqued with the scent of her perspiration.
Showing my ID, I introduced myself and recited my credentials. "I'm from the Flats. You are a friend of Tamara Squires?"
"Tamara? Is this about the outbreak?"
"It is. And are you Sofia Martinez?"
"Yes I am." She politely agreed to let me in. Tugging at her moistened T-shirt, worn braless over smallish breasts, she said, "I just got back from the gym. Hope you don't mind me smelling like a mare."
"I hadn't noticed."
"Don't bullshit me, Mr. Gomez. I saw your nose wrinkle." Black spandex shorts clung to her substantial, inviting butt.
I followed her into the modest living room, where I sat on the sofa and she plopped in the stuffed armchair. A snowboard rested in the corner. Softball and soccer trophies on the mantle crowded around a figurine of the Madonna and Child.
Sofia slipped loose her cross-trainers, peeled off her socks, and folded her bare, muscular legs underneath her hips. Suddenly, she sprang from the chair and headed for the kitchen. "Oh gosh, where are my manners? Coffee?"
I needed to ask questions and not waste time. "None for me. But thanks."
"Too late. Since I'm having some, so are you." She yelled from the kitchen. "Are you here to talk about the nympho thing?"
I hadn't mentioned anything about that. "How did you know?"
"Because you asked about Tamara and then you come to see me. That was a no-brainer. Her life really went into the poopster over this, didn't it?"
"According to her, yeah."
Sofia returned with a serving tray with two delicate china cups filled with coffee. "I take mine with cream and a dash of sugar. I put the same in yours."
She set a cup and saucer in front of me on the coffee table. "Let me tell you a secret about myself"—Sofia took her cup and curled into the stuffed chair—"I was a goddamn nympho before all this crap happened at the Flats."
"So it had no effect on you?"
Sofia scrunched her lips together and wobbled her head as if deciding what to say. "I wouldn't say that. It did make me lower my standards on occasion." She set the cup on an end table. Clasping her hands, she shoved them between her knees and rocked forward. "I shouldn't have said that, it was stupid. Sorry. For me, it couldn't have come at a worse time." With a flourish of her left arm, she looked up at the ceiling. "Here I am, in my mid-thirties, divorced, my goddam biological clock ringing so loud that I'm surprised the neighbors can't hear it, and I can't find someone to give me a kid. And then, to make me a certified sexual basket case, I get nymphomania for real."
"No Prozac?"
"Prozac? What the hell do I need that for? My only problem with sex is this." She snatched an envelope from the corner of the coffee table. "Here's another invitation from one of my sisters to yet another baby shower." She shook the envelope at me. Her cheeks darkened to the shade of her lipstick. "When's my baby shower? Huh, Felix? When's mine?"
Sofia sat still, sulking. "Am I a bad person?"
Should've brought rubber boots; I didn't think I'd have to wade this deep through emotional wreckage. "No," I told her.
She aimed those blue eyes at me. "Do you think I'm pretty?"
"Yes, I do." This was true.
"Then what's the problem? Am I too forward? I thought guys didn't like all that prissy bullshit." The words spewed out of her mouth like she had a motor in her throat. "Every guy worth having sex with is either fixed or won't give me a kid. I don't want to marry anybody again or bust his ass over child support, I just want to be able to point out to my baby, ‘There's your daddy.' And then I get this goddamn nymphomania and I go through enough condoms to make a zeppelin because I don't want to get pregnant from the wrong dipshit."
"Have you gone to a clinic?" I asked. "For a baby, I mean."
"I'm not doing the turkey-baster thing. I want quality sperm fresh out of the penis."
"Maybe you have to compromise."
"Compromise what? All I want is to get laid and get pregnant by somebody decent," she shouted. "It happens millions of times every day to women on this planet—just not to me."
How sad for her, but I had to steer the conversation back to the nymphomania. I took the last sip of my coffee and set the cup on its saucer. "So your biological clock started ringing before the outbreak?"
"Hello? Didn't I say that? I've been after a baby since I was divorced six years ago."
"Seems like plenty of time."
"You'd think. Casual sex was not the problem. It's that the guys either did the daddy-thing already with their exes or they don't want kids, period. So here are these otherwise perfectly suitable mates and I have to throw them back because"—her voice angered—"they won't give me a baby."
"I'm racing the calendar." She held up three fingers. "This is how many years I got. No woman in my family over forty ever got pregnant."
Her eyes glistened. She wiped a tear. "Sorry to act this way." Her voice trembled. "But I really want a baby. I even have a nursery upstairs. Wanna see?"
God no. This woman had enough problems to keep a platoon of shrinks busy. "That's okay."
Sofia gave a smile so tense I thought her face would break. She finished her coffee. Closing her eyes for a moment, she sighed deeply and her cheeks turned their natural color. "Let's change the subject. What's with you? That makeup?"
"A skin condition. Gulf War Syndrome."
"Yew." She squinted and turned her head to examine me. "Other than that, you're not bad-looking. That syndrome didn't leave you…shooting blanks?"
"You mean sterile?"
"That. Impotent."
"There's a difference," I said defensively. Vampires certainly weren't impotent. But we were sterile and propagated solely by fanging. "My plumbing works. But I am shooting blanks."
"See what I mean?" Sofia splayed her hands in a gesture of resignation. "Another decent guy who doesn't cut the mustard."
First time I'd ever been called decent. "I thought we had changed the subject. What can you tell me about your contamination in Building 707?"
Sofia crossed her arms. "I can't go into details about that. Why are you asking?"
Time for vampire hypnosis. I bent my head down and dropped the contacts into my hand. I lifted my head and stared at Sofia.
Her rosy face blanched. Her eyes widened. Her lips parted enough for a whisper to escape. "Oh wow."
That I'd never heard from a victim before. Considering my experience with Tamara, I approached Sofia cautiously, lest she kept a pistol jammed between the seat cushions. Her aura surrounded her like an electric cloud.
Sofia's cheeks darkened again while her eyes gazed at mine expectantly. Tendrils from her aura turned yellow. A wave of pheromones smothered all other smells. My fingers tingled in alarm. I started to step back. Her legs reached for mine and her ankles scooped behind my calves. She grasped my wrists and pulled me down on her. "Come on, Felix. Do me."
The yellow in the tendrils migrated into the rest of her aura. My paranoia bordered on panic. It wasn't the threat from her I feared but this unknown reaction to my hypnosis. I wasn't able to easily control her.
As with Tamara, there was only one remedy. I knelt before Sofia and took her head in my hands. She let go of my arms and pulled her T-shirt over her breasts.
"Yeah, Felix," she growled seductively and leaned into me, "I'll bet you have a weapons-grade hard-o
n for me."
I sank my fangs into her neck and tasted her sweet blood. Thankfully, she nodded off soon and went limp in the chair. I cleaned up and left.
After driving home, I meditated in my coffin and reviewed what little I had learned. This nymphomania didn't seem supernatural in origin or effect, yet that it could cut through vampire hypnosis distressed me. Plus, every time I remembered the taste of Tamara's or Sofia's blood, my bowels weakened in panic from the danger I'd put myself into. It was wishful thinking on my part to imagine that I was safe from contamination. The next time I went into the bathroom I might find myself glowing with radioactivity, or, worse, look down and see that my dick had rotted off.
Still, I had one more chance. I needed to interview the third radiological control technician. Jenny Calhoun.
Chapter 7
JENNY CALHOUN LIVED IN Arvada, a bedroom suburb right smack in the center of the radioactive smoke plume should Rocky Flats catch fire, like it has twice before. She agreed to meet that afternoon at a coffee shop next to a supermarket, which suited me. I couldn't easily hypnotize her in such a public place, but she wouldn't try to seduce me, either. Plus, the openness should keep the mysterious assassin from lunging after me again. I hoped.
Over the phone, Jenny described herself as young-looking—whatever that meant—with wild red hair.
From my background info on her I knew Jenny to be twenty-six. At a table outside the coffee shop sat a slender girl with narrow, trendy eyeglasses and a mane the color of hot copper wire. Young-looking was right. She appeared sixteen—maybe. On this bright day, it was warm enough for her to sit slouched with her sweater unbuttoned. A midriff blouse and black skirt clinging to her lithe frame didn't add one year to her apparent age. Had to be Jenny.
She zeroed in on me as I approached and kept her green eyes fixed on my face. When I got close and removed my sunglasses she said, "You're an interesting-looking specimen."
"I'm Felix Gomez. And you're Jenny?"
She lifted her paper cup in a cardboard sleeve. "The one and only." She shed a flip-flop and with her manicured toes, nudged an empty chair away from the table. "Sit."
The aroma of caramel and coffee rose from her cup. I could do with a good jolt of caffeine, but as I didn't have any blood to spike it with, I'd wait.
I scooted the chair into the shade of the umbrella and sat. "You don't mind talking here?"
"Nope. I ain't gonna say anything I shouldn't."
"I'm going to ask about the outbreak."
Jenny faked a pout. "Shame. You know I can't say anything about that. I was hoping you had read my number on a bathroom wall and wanted a date."
"Sure, we'll go on a date." Anything to get her talking.
"I'm teasing. I'm under medication and wouldn't be much fun."
"Prozac?"
Jenny shook the handbag hanging off the back of her chair. The sound of pills rattling against plastic came from the bag. "It's put a crimp in my social calendar, but then again, when I wake up in the morning I no longer ask where am I and who is the guy snoring next to me."
"Did the outbreak make you that promiscuous?"
"Felix, let me put it this way. Assuming the average penis is six inches long, since the outbreak I've had about twenty-five and a half feet of dick from different men."
Charming calculation. "So if you're not looking for a date," I asked, "why did you agree to see me?"
"Curiosity. To see who else wanted to ask strange questions."
"What kind of questions? Who asked them? Someone from DOE?"
"No." Jenny sat up and curled her fingers around the cup. Her voice turned serious. "This guy didn't show me any credentials. He was a foreigner I'm sure. Spoke with an accent, though his English was good."
"He asked about the outbreak?"
"Not really. He knew about it. Called it the sickness." Jenny looked down to her cup. "But mostly he asked about others talking to me."
The comment triggered my sense of self-protection and heightened my awareness of the surroundings. Our table was closest to the corner of the sidewalk. A few cars drove past the curb as they cruised through the parking lot of the strip mall. Everyone seemed preoccupied with something else, certainly not with us.
"What other people?"
"Not people." Jenny raised her eyes, her features tense. "He asked about vampires."
Her answer was as shocking as a live wire against my nose. Vampires? I held my breath to retain my composure. Since when do humans ask about vampires? We were myths, as fantastic to humans as unicorns and UFOs.
Jenny's gaze darted suspiciously about my face. She pulled her hands from the coffee cup and put them in her lap.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"It's the make-up," she whispered.
Her concern implied danger and I readied my hand to remove my contacts and hypnotize her.
Her expression grew more apprehensive. "You're not a—"
Smiling, I interrupted her. "A vampire? What do you think?"
Jenny stared for a moment, then gave an apologetic grin. "Of course not." She extended her arms across the table and held her coffee cup again. "Sorry."
"My skin condition is from the Iraq War, the second one." I touched my face and lowered my hand. "I'm hypersensitive to the sun."
"Like a vampire?"
I laughed. "Sure, like a vampire if you want."
Jenny chuckled with me. "I once slept with someone who wore makeup. Didn't really sleep, as it turned out. He was all into the Goth thing, which didn't bother me, but when he came out of his bathroom sporting an erection, eye shadow, and lingerie, that was my cue to leave, nymphomania or not."
But what about the snoop who came looking for my kind? "The guy who asked about vampires, what did he look like?"
"Older. Way older." Jenny stroked her scalp. "Buzz cut. And a beard. Big cross around his neck. Nerves wound kinda tight. Creepy even."
"Was he alone?"
"No. He came to my house in a van. Somebody else was driving. Couldn't see who it was."
"And he asked about vampires? Just like that?"
"I didn't want to talk to him, especially since details about the outbreak are supposed to be confidential. The vampire question came out of the blue."
"Did you report him, Jenny?"
"No. The vampire question was too weird. I'm under enough scrutiny already, so why draw more attention to myself? DOE acts like I contracted the nymphomania just to embarrass them. The guy left straight away and I didn't see any harm done. So I kept quiet about it."
"When did he visit?"
"Two days ago." Jenny twirled a lock of her hair between her fingers. She stared at me as if she could see through my makeup. Her gaze beamed desire. Was the nymphomania taking hold?
"Has your medication worn off?"
"The hell with my medication." Jenny rubbed her foot up my sock and between my trouser leg and shin. "Wanna make it twenty-six feet? Assuming that you're average, of course."
"Twenty-six feet of what?"
"This." Jenny reached across the table and grabbed my belt buckle. I pulled away, but she kept her grip and caused me to drag her slender body against the table. We knocked over her cup and spilled coffee on the sidewalk.
I needed to subdue her before she started stripping. I turned my face downward and squeezed the contacts into my empty hand.
"Come on, Felix," she cooed. "Don't get shy on me. I hear you combat veterans can get really perverted."
I palmed the sides of Jenny's head.
Her aura burned a hot cadmium yellow. The nymphomania was in control.
"You demented bastard," Jenny sneered, eyes closed. "The rough stuff, huh? Right here in public? I can take it."
With my back to the parking lot, in the reflection of the café window I saw a passing BMW slow down. The driver's window retracted and a woman's anxious face peered out at us.
"What's going on?" she asked.
I kept my back to the BMW, didn't want to subd
ue that woman as well, and brought my nose against Jenny's.
Her eyes opened and bore into mine. "Holy…" She went limp, her tongue drooling over her slack jaw.
Hurriedly I folded Jenny's tongue back into her mouth and shut her jaw. I sat her in my chair and pulled my sunglasses from my coat pocket. Covering my eyes with the glasses, I approached the BMW and explained in my most professional, soothing voice. "There's no trouble, ma'am. My patient's had a seizure. She's okay."
The woman scowled. "Like hell. I know what I saw." She lifted a cell phone against her cheek. "You can explain it to the police." I was close enough to touch her door when the BMW accelerated away. The woman tossed one look back at me.
I lifted my sunglasses and zapped her.
Her eyebrows rose in astonishment and her lips formed an oval around the gape of her mouth. The BMW zoomed through the pedestrian crossing. Shoppers jumped out of her way. The BMW veered to the right and crunched into a parked Cadillac SUV, spraying the asphalt with the shattered red plastic of the tail lamps. The Cadillac's alarm screamed as if wounded.
Under the cover of this distraction, I gave Jenny another vampire glare to refresh the hypnosis. Jerking her by the arm, I tugged her around to the alley behind the strip mall. She stumbled behind me. Her flip-flops slapped the pavement.
The alley reeked of urine and rotting food. Piles of flattened cardboard boxes stood along the walls. I pulled Jenny toward the Dumpster.
"Uhh, inside the Dumpster—now that's kinky," she whispered excitedly. Pheromones gushed from her body. How did this nymphomania burn through my hypnosis?
I whipped Jenny ahead of me and sent her tripping over a stack of wooden pallets. My fangs sprouted. After a glance to see that we were alone, I knelt to hold her by the shoulders. I pulled her head back and curved her delicious throat toward me.
Afterwards, I walked her back to the sidewalk tables and left her slumped in a chair, her sweater buttoned tight to her neck to hide my bite marks. Within a few minutes she'd wake up, confused and oblivious to our meeting.
The Nymphos of Rocky Flats Page 6