My fingertips tingled. My vampire senses grasped a hunch and alerted me that perhaps—no, certainly—these events were connected.
If so, then time to reenergize my investigation and draw out those stalking me. My leads pointed to one man, the person at the center of the conspiracy behind the outbreak. Dr. Bigelow Wong.
I'd kept my distance, fearing that I would compromise my investigation if I pressed him too eagerly. My adversaries, whoever they were, weren't worried by such concerns.
From my Internet source I learned that Dr. Wong had managed his dollars well during his career with the Department of Energy. He had recently bought a home in Tucson, Arizona, and moved his family there. While he waited for retirement, he lived alone in a high-rise condominium in the Park Hill neighborhood of Denver.
The condo building was new, accented with rounded corners and oval windows that repeated the architectural rhythm of the gently arched roof. Each story had recessed balconies and stuccoed walls, the floors alternating in pastel green and beige, and separated by narrow ledges that looked like icing squeezed between the layers of a cake.
Entrance to the building was through a small, unadorned lobby. Banks of mailboxes and an intercom occupied the wall to the left. An elevator stood on the other side of a partition of green-tinted glass. Access to the elevator was through a glass door, which was locked. I couldn't very well ring Dr. Wong on the intercom and ask to be let in to discuss the outbreak.
Sifting through a trashcan under the mailboxes, I pulled out a piece of discarded junk mail. Standing against the glass partition, I pretended to read the mail and waited for someone to unlock the door.
The elevator chimed. Out stepped a young, stylish couple. They chatted about dinner plans with friends and exited, ignoring my presence.
I caught the door before it closed and went to the elevator, which I took to the third floor. Once there, I found Dr. Wong's unit, number 313. I removed my contacts, slipped on leather gloves, and knocked on the door.
Someone called out in a bothered voice. "What is it?"
"Mr. Wong, this is maintenance."
"It's Dr. Wong. It's late, why are you bothering me?"
"Excuse me, Dr. Wong, someone reported a gas leak and we're trying to track it down."
"There's no gas leak here."
"I wish I could take your word, but we need to play it safe."
The lock snapped, and the door opened.
"Very well," he groused. Dr. Wong turned away before we made eye contact. "You can be sure that the manager will hear about this tomorrow. I'm not paying those outrageous association fees to be bothered like this."
His red aura bristled with spikes and signaled his annoyance. Spindly brown arms and legs jutted from his yellow T-shirt and baggy shorts. "Come in. Make it quick."
I entered and shut the door. The living room opened to a kitchen. A cool breeze from the balcony swept through a sliding door and rustled the newspaper on the kitchen counter.
I put my hand on Wong's shoulder. He spun around to parry my arm. My grip held him firm.
His eyes drew wide and his scowl went flat when I locked my vampire gaze upon him. I pushed him backwards onto a sofa seat.
I let go of his shoulder. Holding his hands, I kneaded the webs of flesh between his thumbs and index fingers.
Dr. Wong's breathing eased. His muscles relaxed. His aura softened. I kept my gaze locked on his until his aura swirled around his body like warm syrup.
"Dr. Wong, tell me about Project Redlight."
Though his face remained expressionless, he replied with a chuckle. "Redlight? That's been my ticket to financial independence."
Under hypnosis, victims' answers were shaded by their subconscious biases. I had to guide the interrogation to get the facts I needed.
"Your success? In what?"
His chuckle resumed. "In DOE. What I know makes me very important…and dangerous."
"Dangerous to whom?"
He pointed his nose to the ceiling. "The bigwigs. The men who run this country. The guardians of the truth."
"What truth?"
"The world did go crazy." He giggled. "I, Dr. Bigelow Wong, the nerdy, anal-retentive scientist, suddenly had to fight off the pussy. All those beautiful women who ignored me for so many years couldn't drop their panties fast enough. Who would've expected? It was better than any retention bonus. For a few beautiful days, I was the Big Wong."
"Yes, I know about the nymphomania. But what was the cause?"
His aura spiked again. Warning.
His hands suddenly pulled loose from mine, and he seized my wrists. I immediately yanked free and grabbed his shoulders. To subdue him, I had to use my fangs. I aimed for his throat.
Perhaps screwing the nymphos had contaminated him and this was how he resisted my hypnosis. But his aura remained steady and hadn't changed to yellow, as had the infected radiological control technicians.
He acted cooperative. My fangs retracted. I caressed his eyes shut and cradled his face in my hands. As my aura melded with his, siphoning his psychic resistance and strengthening my hypnotic hold, his muscles relaxed. His pulse slowed. I asked again, "What was the cause?"
"Red. Redlight," he whispered. "Hg-209."
"What?"
"Hg-209. Red mercury."
"What about red mercury?"
Wong started to raise an arm. I let him, and he motioned to a shelf of books on the opposite wall. "The cause was red mercury. And the EBEs."
"EBEs?"
"My diary explains everything."
DOE forbade any mention of classified information except in authorized documents. "You keep a diary?"
He wet his lips. "Yes."
"Why?"
He tilted his head back toward the ceiling and replied in a quiet, smug tone. "Consider it blackmail against the gods."
Carefully withdrawing my hands, I turned and followed the direction of his upraised arm. I didn't expect to find a book labeled Dr. Wong's secret diary. "Where is it?"
"Inside the copy of Audubon's Birds of America."
I found the volume. Tucked into a cutout within the color plates, was a slim composition book. I opened the composition book and found it filled with neat columns of handwritten notes. It was a diary. Could unraveling the conspiracy be this easy?
I maneuvered an ottoman in front of the doctor and sat. I would peruse the notes and ask Wong to explain everything. At last I'd find out about the Tiger Team report, Project Redlight, his trips to Area 51, the red mercury, and, now, the EBEs. By this time tomorrow I'd be at Rocky Flats, giving Gilbert Odin my report and collecting the remainder of my fee. Case closed.
I heard a thwack.
"Dr. Wong?"
He remained silent. His red aura faded, collapsing into his slumped form.
I shook him. "Dr. Wong. Dr. Wong."
He tipped forward. Blood seeped across the back of his T-shirt. Wong's aura faded to nothing. He was dead.
A tuft of stuffing curled from a hole in the upholstery. Something had punched through the back of the seat. A bullet?
I snapped a look over his shoulder, past the kitchen, and to another tall building beyond his balcony. My ears and fingertips tingled from my vampire senses going to maximum alert. I ducked. A bullet whizzed past. The lamp on the end table shattered.
With the diary tucked to my side, I scrambled for the front door and out into the hall. The elevator chimed. Much too coincidental an arrival. I spied an exit sign in the other direction and sprinted.
The elevator doors whooshed open. I turned my head for an instant to see who came out.
Two men, bearded and middle-aged, burst into the hall. They wore hats and long, open coats. Red auras flared around them. Large silver crucifixes hung from their necks. One brandished a sawed-off shotgun and the other a double-bladed ax—the type of weapons used to murder Ziggy. The men yelled at each other in a harsh foreign dialect.
Vânätori de vampir.
I kicked open the metal fi
re door leading to the stairwell. Just as I cleared the threshold, a blast of pellets ricocheted off the door.
I used my vampire powers to glide above the steps to the next landing. The man with the shotgun leaned over the railing and took aim. I huddled against the wall, outside his line of sight. A volley of pellets splattered along the stairs.
Pain stabbed my left leg. One pellet tore into my shin. I limped down the stairs, suddenly too weak to float over more than a few steps at a time. I continued to the bottom of the stairwell and went out the door, into the crisp, night air of the alley. A row of sodium lamps threw their yellow glare into the gloom.
I ran to the left, the shortest path to my car.
In front of me, where the alley emptied to the street, appeared a man with a coat similar to my pursuers. His aura burned with hatred. He cradled a hunting rifle with a scope. I was sure he was the one who had shot Dr. Wong.
He jerked the rifle to his shoulder and fired a wild shot that missed.
The stairwell door behind me opened with a bang and the two men rushed into the alley.
I was trapped. I halted. The silver pellet burned against my left shinbone. Blood oozed into my shoe.
My throat tightened in panic. My ears and fingers tingled so hard that they buzzed. The only escape was to crawl up the wall. I hobbled over and planted my toes and fingertips against the stucco. Managing only two feeble steps against gravity, I knew that I couldn't reach the balcony above in time to avoid getting shot and decapitated. I slid back to the ground.
The man with the rifle tracked me through the scope. The other two men called to him and he held his fire.
Shadows falling from the wide brims of their hats shrouded their faces. In this meager light, I couldn't easily hypnotize them. Not all at once. And not until they got closer. They approached warily. Their auras crackled with hostility and determination. The older one with the ax held his crucifix before him and chanted in Latin.
An approaching police siren echoed through the alley.
The man glanced over his shoulder toward the siren and let the crucifix dangle. He gripped his ax with both hands, his fingers flexing. He hissed at his companions and their steps quickened.
With this wounded leg I couldn't escape, not in human form.
A Dumpster stood against the wall to my left, midway between the man with the rifle and myself. I ran toward it as best I could. Bolts of agony shot up my left leg.
Ten feet from the Dumpster I leapt and dove for the inside. I didn't figure that the cover might be secured. Instead of landing within, I bounced off the metal top. I landed hard on the asphalt, between the Dumpster and the wall, knocking the wind out of me and scraping my knuckles.
Gasping and dizzy, I struggled to my feet, tilted open the Dumpster's cover, and crawled inside…to land on top of piles of stinking garbage. I burrowed into the trash, into the slime and yuck at the very bottom, and tucked myself into a ball.
I commanded the transformation and channeled pain and fear into the energy needed to change my shape. My heartbeat quickened. My bones and joints stretched and popped, each crack a torture that I endured in silence. My skull distended. Saliva washed from my mouth, dripping from many sharp teeth. Skin prickled as my hair thickened and spread across my body. Smells flooded my growing snout. My ears picked sounds too faint even for vampires.
I shook off the man garments choking me. I waited hunched inside the Dumpster, naked and hairy, no longer vampire but wolf.
The man creatures approached the enclosure, their breathing guarded and anxious. They exuded smells—of digested cow meat, perspiration, and the greasy odor of their deadly fire weapons.
The hairs on my spine bristled. My lips curled back to bare vicious canines. I felt the urge to rip their flesh and taste blood. But escape was my priority. Revenge could come later.
The long end of a human weapon pushed over the top of the enclosure. Just as the man's head appeared, I lunged for him and knocked aside the weapon.
He screamed. The weapon released its explosive bark. The loud noise stung my ears.
I landed between him and his companion. My left hind leg collapsed and I yelped, reminded painfully of my wound.
Springing to my paws, I raced down the canyon between the human nesting structures and hid in the shadows.
Another weapon barked and its bite pinged well away to my side. I turned the corner and continued down the wide path. The wail of the siren became louder.
Several humans emerged from one of their carriers. The two males smelled of a recent dinner and the female of estrus. I snarled at them. They shouted in fright and jumped away.
I was surrounded by mountains of human dwellings. Sniffing river water, I turned toward the source, knowing that I could hide in the reeds and wait until later to transform back into a vampire.
A human carrier roared in front of me. Lights flashed along its top. I stumbled and turned. My wounded leg buckled under me. I lunged off my good hind leg and started again. The smell of river water grew stronger. I lifted my head to look for any signs of bushes or a shoreline.
I headed west and slinked through the bushes and shadows surrounding the dwellings. Human carriers rolled past. Some slowed and made honking noises. One of the human carriers with the flashing colored lights shined a powerful light in my direction. I hid within a lilac bush along a fence and waited for them to leave. The moon crested the tallest dwelling.
I welcomed the opportunity to rest. My wounded hind leg burned with pain.
The light went dark and the carrier left. I trotted from under the bush and continued west. I moved carefully from cover to cover and did my best to avoid humans. There were few of their carriers on the roads. By the time the moon had risen high above, the smell of the river was strong and inviting.
I loped from the shadows toward an open dirt lot. Colored lights flashed on. A bright white light caught me. I dashed to the left.
A sudden sting, like from a bee, popped me beside my tail. Desperate to escape, I ran faster.
My legs grew clumsy. My paws knocked against each other. I slowed and dragged my numbed hind legs. A feathered human weapon clung to my haunches. I tried to gnaw it off but my head felt too heavy to hold upright. Drowsiness smothered my panic. I lay on the cool ground and watched through dimming eyes a human approach, a rope in her hands.
Chapter 17
THE YAPPING OF EXCITED dogs awakened me.
"Felix."
I lifted my groggy head in the direction my name had come from. Recognizing the scent, then the voice, and finally the orange aura, I struggled upright to my paws. A cone of white material encircled my head.
A familiar man stepped close. His hand reached into my cage. I whimpered in anticipation of regaining my freedom and clumsily turned my head with this cone around it. His fingers stroked my muzzle and I licked them in appreciation.
The man fumbled with the front of the cage and opened the door. He spread a blanket on the floor and beckoned me with a soothing whisper.
I limped out of the cage and lay in the center of the blanket. Shutting my eyes, I summoned the transformation.
Pain enveloped me. I clenched my teeth to keep from yelping. Saliva bubbled through my lips. My legs trembled and my tail twitched from the agony.
The dogs in the cages around us whined and barked nervously.
Fur retracted into flesh. My skin felt on fire. This cone around my head dug into my neck. My bones twisted and realigned from the shape of a wolf into that of a vampire. The toes on my forelimbs stretched into fingers. My hearing grew dim. The smells in my nose became simple. Abstract thought returned, and my awareness swelled with the names of things inside the dark kennel, especially this plastic doggie cone I found wrapped around my head.
I ripped the thing off.
The man laughed. "You're lucky I didn't bring a camera."
I wiped the drool and sweat from my face. "Screw you." I pulled the blanket over my nakedness.
"How the he
ll did you end up here?" Bob Carcano lifted the blanket away from my left leg. "What happened?"
"Shotgun. Vampire hunters. Then a dog catcher nailed me in the ass with a tranquilizer dart."
He felt my swollen wound. "They could've done a better job treating you. Mind if I help?"
I flinched. "Be my guest."
Bob dragged the razor edge of his fingernail over the lump and cut my skin. He squeezed tainted blood through the incision. I clenched my fists to withstand the anguish. Sweat trickled from my brow, pooled in my eye sockets, and stung my eyes. Blood spurted from the slit. The pellet popped out and rattled across the linoleum.
"Silver," Bob said. "Must have been agony."
"It hurt like hell, if that's what you're getting at."
Bob spit on his fingers and massaged my wound.
The pain ebbed as his vampire enzymes deadened the nerves and began healing the injured tissues. I lay on the floor and breathed deeply, relieved that I had survived and was back in the form of a vampire.
Bob offered his hand. "Let's go." He helped me up.
Walking stiffly, I dragged the blanket along and followed Bob to the exit. "How'd you know I was here?"
"A wolf gets trapped in Denver—news like that has a way of making it to my ears." He reset the alarm by the door and pocketed the key. "You aren't the first vampire I've rescued from the Denver Municipal Animal Shelter."
We went outside and proceeded toward his Buick Regal. The chill caused me to wrap the blanket tight against my naked body. The muffled barking inside the shelter carried into the darkness. Cold gravel in the parking lot poked the tender soles of my bare feet. I leaned on Bob's shoulder to offset my still-weakened left leg.
"What time is it?"
Bob pulled back the cuff of his jacket to read his watch. "A little past three."
"Thursday morning?"
"Yeah." Bob aimed his remote at the Buick. Its lights flashed and the honk chirped twice. He opened the rear door for me. The interior dome light blinked on. "Don't take this wrong, Felix, but you stink like a sewer."
The Nymphos of Rocky Flats Page 12