Wendy and I made eye contact. Her big frightened eyes begged for help.
I'm trying, baby.
I swung the left end of the pipe toward Dragan and cracked it against his skull. His knees buckled, and he fell over the table, upending it. The candles tumbled to the floor and landed in the trash littering the room.
I immediately jabbed to the right and caught Petru across the nose. One hand came up to protect his face and the other readied the mallet to hit me. His eyebrows cinched angrily and his eyes narrowed. Our eyes locked long enough for me to hook him with vampire hypnosis.
Teodor yelled, "Don't look into his eyes"—but too late.
Teodor started for me, dragging Wendy by her chain tether. She pulled against him and kicked him across the back of one knee. His leg folded and he collapsed. The electric baton fell from his hand and clattered on the floor. She jumped on him and bashed him on the head with the steel links binding her wrists. Teodor writhed and bellowed in pain. He jerked his arm around wildly, backhanded Wendy and knocked her off him. He staggered to his feet.
I jangled my wrist chains and commanded Petru, "Undo these."
He clasped the key ring clipped to his belt loop. Blood dripped from his swollen nose. His obedient gaze remained fixed on mine. He groped for the lock on the chain and inserted the key.
"Hurry up," I said.
The chain rattled loose. My feet sank to the floor and my legs bore my entire weight. I was free. My wrists and neck ached where the links had pressed into my flesh. I snatched the mallet from Petru. "Hold still."
He did as I commanded and stood comatose before me. I walloped him on the forehead, leaving a circular imprint on the front of his skull. His face quivered, and his eyes rolled up into their sockets. He teetered like a plank and fell straight back.
Teodor was almost on me. Wendy picked herself up and lunged at him. Teodor spun about and grasped the chain around her neck. He shook her and cursed. "I'm going to kill you, demon witch."
"You first." Wendy flailed at him with kicks to his shins.
I flung the mallet at Teodor. Sharp pains zippered up my back where Petru had whaled on me with the rebar.
The mallet bounced off Teodor's skull. His head wobbled and he fell toward Wendy as if they were going to embrace.
Dragan lay next to my feet. I reached around him, picked up my pistol where it had fallen and took aim at Teodor's back.
I couldn't risk shooting him without endangering Wendy. At this range, the bullets would go straight through him and into her. Grasping Teodor by his collar, I smacked him on the temple with the butt of the SIG-Sauer. His eyes bugged out. He gasped and went slack. Wendy released her hold and backed away to let Teodor slam face first against to the floor.
I scrambled to find the keys on Teodor's belt and opened the locks on Wendy's chains.
She kicked the unconscious Teodor in the head. "Sayonara, you son of a bitch."
Fire burst from under the table and a wave of smoke rolled against the ceiling.
I pulled Wendy away. "Teodor will get his later." Together we moved for the front door and cupped our hands over our mouths to filter the smoke. The ache in my back cramped my right side and I limped beside Wendy.
A gunshot boomed, then again, and again. Dragan lay prone by the space heater. He jerked the trigger of a revolver and sprayed the air with bullets.
Shoving Wendy toward the door, I drew my pistol up and loosed one round at Dragan.
I missed.
But the bullet ruptured the propane tank of the space heater. A fiery blast knocked Wendy and me onto our backs. The SIG-Sauer bounced out of my grasp. Smoke swallowed us. Flames licked my skin. I didn't want to die. Not now. Not roasted like a chicken. Both of us scrambled onto our bellies and crawled through the acrid smoke, bumping against the walls and furniture until we found the front door. We rose to our feet, staggered outside, and sucked in the clean, cold night air. Heavy snowflakes from the blizzard melted on our skin. The pain in my back ebbed and I hobbled alongside Wendy.
We scooted clumsily across the icy snow to the corner at the right and started down the hill. A mound of snow covered my Dodge.
Wendy folded her arms tight across her chest and hunched her shoulders to keep warm. A plume of vapor trailed from her mouth. Her flimsy scrubs didn't offer much protection from the chill.
I took the keys out of my pocket and peeled off my barn coat. I offered it to Wendy. Without breaking stride, she shoved her arms into the sleeves.
Behind us, flames and smoke poured out of the garage. The three vânätori crawled, wheezing and coughing, out the back door and into the fenced lot behind the garage.
"Damn, these guys are as hard to kill as cockroaches," I said, feeling the threat of danger return. I wished I hadn't lost the SIG-Sauer.
We reached my car and both of us raked snow off the windshield.
"So what's the plan, Felix?" Wendy asked. "We lead Carmen and the other vampires here to finish these guys off, right?"
"No." I paused to catch my breath. The frigid night air scratched the inside of my throat. "We go to Rocky Flats."
Wendy stopped brushing the snow. "What?"
I dug ice from the door lock with my keys. "I need to confirm what Dragan said about the nymphomania."
"You mean his story about a spaceship?"
"Not just any spaceship—It's the UFO from Roswell. Didn't you notice how my aura changed colors from the red mercury?"
"I thought it was a trick." Wendy resumed brushing away the snow. "What at Rocky Flats will prove that?"
"They're hiding something in the trailer bound for New Mexico."
She stopped again. "The UFO?"
"We'll see."
Dragan stumbled to the fence. He was a good hundred feet away, yet too close.
I yanked the driver's door open. Snow cascaded over the interior. "Hurry. Get in."
A shot rang out, a dull thud through the hiss of the snowfall.
Something stabbed me in the small of my back. An unbelievably fierce pain, followed by an overwhelming weakness, forced me to my knees.
Dragan clung to the fence with one hand, his other hand jerking the revolver. Click, click, click.
Wendy rushed around the front of the Dodge and cried out, "Felix."
Blood seeped down my skin against the inside of my shirt. I paused to gather strength to stand up and hand her the keys. "You'll have to drive."
"Where did you get hit?"
I took a baby step toward the car. "It's nothing a vampire can't handle. By the time we get down the mountain, I'll be fine."
She nudged me through the driver's door. I crawled over the center console and unfolded myself in the passenger's seat. Every movement was an exercise in agony. Turning my head to hide any expression of pain, I leaned against the door and hugged myself to fight the cold. Lucky shot on Dragan's part. And lousy luck on mine. I was hurt bad and getting worse. I should've felt my recuperative powers kick in—I'd been shot before—but this time I felt nothing but pain and a draining weakness.
Wendy let the Dodge coast backwards for a few feet then turned the front toward the bottom of the hill. She twisted the ignition key and the engine cranked over immediately. Good old DieHard battery.
Our breaths fogged the windows. Wendy rubbed her hand against the inside of the windshield to clear away the condensation. She flipped the heater switch to maximum.
I wiped the lower corner of the passenger window and peered at the exterior mirror. In the reflection, Dragan and the other two vânätori grew smaller and smaller.
Wendy drove faster. At the intersection at the bottom of the hill we slid through the traffic signal.
I motioned to the left. "That way."
Wendy skidded the Dodge through the turn. Suddenly, the streetlights went dark. It seemed as if doom had found us.
"Aw hell," Wendy said. "Ice must've snapped the power lines."
The swirling mush of snow swallowed the beams of our headlamps. The worl
d around us was dark as ink. Wendy pulled tight against the steering wheel to bring her face close to the windshield. "Even with my vision I can't see where the road is."
The Dodge drifted to the right. Wendy turned the wheel but the car continued to veer off the road. She pumped the brakes. The tires bounced over the edge of the pavement. We rolled off the shoulder of the road, smacked against a guardrail, and stalled the engine.
I jostled against the inside of the door. Pain burned through me as if my guts had been set afire. For the first time in my existence, I welcomed the thought of death, if for nothing else than to free me of this agony.
She restarted the car but the rear wheels spun uselessly.
"Shit." Wendy rested her forehead against the top of the steering wheel. "Well, at least no one's shooting at us." She turned to me. "You all right?"
Blood pooled under my hips. The touch of death felt cold. My teeth chattered uncontrollably.
"Oh, God. Felix, your aura."
I uncurled my fingers. The fading, trembling glow emanating from my hands resembled a match flame about to go out. I was too weak to panic as death embraced me.
Wendy unbuttoned my flannel shirt and slid her hand down along my torso. She withdrew her hand. The skin glistened with blood that turned into flakes. "Oh, Felix," she groaned, "it was only a bullet wound. Why aren't you healing?"
"I've been losing my powers."
"Why? How?"
"I don't know. Contamination from the nymphos? Something from the Iraq War?" I left the last option unspoken: Or maybe because I wouldn't drink human blood.
"We can't stay here all night." Wendy gripped the barn coat tight across her chest and hustled out of the car. She tramped through the snow and opened my door. "There's a building down the hill. We can take shelter there so we won't freeze to death."
I wouldn't live long enough to freeze to death.
She braced my arm over her shoulder and led me down the slope through the snowdrifts toward a shadowy rectangle, which, as we got closer, turned into a large shed.
Her efforts became futile. The feeling of hopelessness gave way to a new sensation, a sadness as I resigned myself to death.
We approached a door and peeked through the small window. Inside, saddles and other riding tack lay heaped about. Wendy tried the doorknob and discovered it was locked.
She turned away from the door. Snow fell across her face. "There must be a house close by, but in this mess we could walk right past and never see it. Well, let's improvise." She balled the sleeve of the barn coat around her fist and smashed the window. Reaching through the broken glass, Wendy popped the door open. The place stank of horse sweat and manure. She pulled me along. My legs barely managed to carry me inside.
Wendy kicked over a stack of tarps and horse blankets and had me lie on top of the smelly mound. I held my side and stretched my legs while she draped a musty blanket over me.
My vision dimmed. My fingers and toes went numb. "Thanks for trying," I whispered, "but the end is close."
Wendy frowned. "Bullshit. Like I'm about to lose you. I know a little vampire first aid." She fetched a long sliver of broken glass from the floor. She pulled her left arm out of the coat sleeve and with the tip of the glass shard, flicked the bandage from her forearm. A slice in her skin marked where the vânätori had bled her.
Wendy bunched a corner of the blanket under my head and propped me up. She held her forearm over my face and twisted the glass shard into her wound. Tendrils snaked from her green aura yet her face remained placid. She withdrew the bloody shard.
Snapshots of what had brought me to this moment flashed before me. The war in Iraq. Our tragic ambush of the Iraqi civilians. Their bodies collapsing under the red hail of our bullets. The screams of the girl I had shot in the belly. My drowning in remorse. The Iraqi vampire condemning me to this fate of wandering the earth as one of the undead. Adding to my misery, there was the guilt that made me abhor the nourishment of human blood. If there was anything I could do before I died, it would be to ask the little Iraqi girl for forgiveness.
Wendy's hot, fresh blood dripped onto my lips. Though she was more than human, I couldn't drink her blood. I tried to nudge her arm away.
Wendy cupped my head and forced the wound on her forearm into my mouth. Tears glistened in her eyes. "Drink." Her whispering voice quavered as she stroked my head. "Please, this could be the only thing that can save you."
The blood flowed over my tongue and down my throat. A great current of energy rushed through my spine, a jolt so strong that I passed out.
Chapter 29
I WAS STANDING IN the mist beside a dark canal. The pungent odor of burnt ammunition stung my nose. Curious and a bit afraid, I took one step forward. A metallic clink sounded from under my feet. I looked down. Spent brass cartridges surrounded my military boots. Desert camouflage fatigues covered my body. An M4 carbine weighed down my arms. A sudden familiarity overwhelmed me, a sensation that yielded to a great terror. I was back at the exact place where my fellow soldiers and I had ambushed and murdered the Iraqi civilians.
In the gloom before me lay four figures. Slowly they pushed up from the ground. In the meager light, I recognized them as the Iraqi family we had mistakenly gunned down.
Shouting in fright, I retreated several steps and readied my weapon to defend myself. But the carbine was gone. I lifted my empty hands to shield my face and glanced about for a way to escape.
The four figures advanced haltingly, as if struggling to balance themselves on bones shattered by bullets and grenades. A diminutive female in a pale dress led them. She was the girl I had shot. A dark blotch stained her belly, over the spot of her terrible wound.
A wave of paralysis froze my legs, and my lungs seized, damming the breath in my throat.
Coming closer, the Iraqis gave awkward smiles from faces ragged with torn flesh. The two women raised their arms, one of them offering just stumps, as our weapons had hacked off those limbs.
The little girl fixed her gaze upon me. Her eyes looked as big as they were the night I had shot her.
"Where are we?" My voice trembled.
Her tiny voice blossomed inside my head. "In the place between life and death. We've been waiting for you."
"Waiting? Why?"
"Because our hatred for you is as strong as the guilt that torments you. If we are to proceed into Heaven, we must forgive."
"Forgive me?"
"You are not responsible for what happened. Those sins belong to those who started the war. We forgive you."
A red aura grew from each of them. My skin tingled. The envelope of an orange aura surrounded my body.
I held up my hands. My fingernails extended into talons. I started toward the Iraqis. "But I'm still a vampire."
The little girl managed a smile. "We've done our part."
All of our auras blazed, becoming brighter and brighter until I was engulfed in a blinding light like the center of the sun itself.
Then all went dark, and I was alone.
Deep within me, my kundalini noir stirred. This black serpent of vampire energy uncoiled, pumping strength and vitality into my undead flesh.
My eyes popped opened. The cool air swelled my lungs. Every detail in the shed seemed crisp and new. I smelled mare's sweat on the blankets and tack. A hidden mouse nibbled from behind a sack of feed.
I clenched my fists and marveled at the intensity of my aura sizzling around me. The other vampires had been wrong. Human blood alone wouldn't restore my powers. I had needed to expunge the curse of guilt from the carcass of my mortal soul. Wendy's supernatural dryad blood had sent me to the edge of the afterlife, where I found absolution. I felt new and refreshed, like a reptile that had shed its old skin.
Wendy scooted away from me. Her green aura radiated distress. "Felix, are you okay?"
I straightened my legs and rotated upwards on my heels until I stood. "I feel better than okay, I feel like murder."
"But your wound…"
> I lifted the back of my shirt and touched the fresh scar that had formed over the bullet hole. "It's just a souvenir now."
Tucking the shirt into my trousers, I peered out the broken window at the frigid calm night. A layer of new snow covered everything. "How long was I out?"
"More than an hour."
I read my watch. "It's three-thirty in the morning. We've got time." I pulled the blanket off the floor and draped it over my shoulders.
"Time for what?"
I grabbed a broom leaning in the near corner. "To highjack a convoy from the Department of Energy."
Wendy followed me outside. "Don't suppose I could talk you out of it? Maybe get help from the other vampires?"
"This is my investigation."
The snowfall had turned our footsteps from the Dodge into a trail of shallow depressions. My feet sank into the snow. I levitated until the soles of my shoes barely scraped over the iced surface and then I started up the incline to my car.
A square hulk of an orange snowplow with flashing amber lights rumbled above on the road.
"If the state highway trucks are out," I said, "then the roads must be clear."
My Dodge Polara sat wedged against the guardrail. With the broom, I whisked snow off the car. "Wendy, get in and start the engine."
She cranked the V-8 over. I discarded the broom and blanket, grasped the rear bumper, and lifted. I pulled backwards until the tires touched the pavement. Moving to the front of the Dodge, I gave the grill a hearty push. Wendy gunned the engine, and the car lurched back onto the highway.
I jerked open the driver's door. "Let me drive."
Though my vampire powers couldn't enchant the Dodge, I drove as if they could. I kept the gas pedal flat against the floor and let the rear end of the car swing across the icy pavement and ricochet off the guardrails.
Wendy tightened her seat belt and braced her arms against the dashboard. "I thought this was a collectors' item."
Pieces of my car tore loose and clanged on the road. "Was," I replied.
The Nymphos of Rocky Flats Page 20