There was no way that I was going back to NASA. I couldn’t simply disappear, though. They would investigate a suspicious disappearance very quickly and would soon discover that while my home computer system was hooked in to a Ma Bell approved outlet with all the security devices that allowed my employers to spy on me, I also had a second line that I used for my portable, and it was on this that I did some very interesting research as well as play a lot of Sudoku with a program I had written to generate puzzles. Acquiring the line had been fairly easy. I had borrowed it from my neighbors when they forgot to disconnect the landline when their daughter went off to college four years ago. It had taken some creative routing and a few lies to a pair of the most trusting people on the planet, but to this day my neighbors have been grateful for my “help” when they had a mysterious problem with their phones that the telephone company refused to fix free of charge because they said the fault was with the wiring in their home—which was utterly true. I had made sure that this was the case. I pay the monthly fees for this phone online from a blind account and since the neighbors never receive a bill for that number, no one is the wiser about my rerouting.
At least, not yet. That would change though, and then I’d have all kinds of three-letter agencies looking for me.
What I should do is resign—take early retirement. But not yet. Ninon and I might need access to some special databases and machines that could really crunch numbers, and they might not take official action to shut me out right away. That meant I had better check in—soon—and perhaps spin some yarn about a case of amoebic dysentery that had laid me up in village with downed phone lines.
Ninon stuck her head out of the bedroom window, waved at me once and then disappeared back inside. Then I caught a glimpse of what looked like Mamita. I didn’t call out to her speeding shadow. If S.M. was after her, I didn’t want to cause any delays.
Ninon emerged a few minutes later, her arms full of cat carrier, looking a bit unsteady and very angry. Her luggage was already in the Jeep. I’d checked. She had packed it before our meeting, knowing that whatever happened, she wouldn’t be sticking around for a postmortem of the day.
But you’ve heard this part before. I don’t want to bore you with too much redundant detail. I’ll have to watch that, since I’ve slipped off the yoke of third-person POV discipline—which says as a popular novelist I have to keep internal monologue and descriptive narrative to a minimum, and not go on and on about things that are important only to me. The fact that it’s a real story—and my story—is no excuse for being tedious. Still, I have to tell you that even annoyed, electrocuted, and concussed, Ninon looked like every man’s ideal sex toy, the ultimate accessory for any heterosexual male’s private fantasy—even for me. Especially me.
Ninon is one of the few women I’ve ever met who actually understands male lust and who would be completely aware that every man who looks at her would be thinking about doing some version of the dirty boogie with her. For some of those men in the bar, they would be imagining her looking up at them through her eyelashes and saying: Spank me, Daddy. Or maybe they’d like her in six-inch heels and nothing else, saying: Suck on my toes—I know you want to. Harmless stuff, these fantasies mostly, though most women would find it freaky to know men think of them this way all the time. Yes, we strip you and dialogue you with brainless ego-boosting patter, and have sex with you in all kinds of bad ways.
For me, it’s darker stuff than bondage and unnatural sex acts. And she had looked up at me and into my soul, and then given me permission to do the really bad thing I’d been longing to do ever since S.M. had changed me. And just as I had feared, a part of me had enjoyed violating her, sucking her blood, pouring my poison into her body.
Does the fact that she knew my desire and gave me permission make it okay?
Ah! My head was indeed full of snakes that night—larvae implanted in my brain that were finally hatching out into wriggling nightmares of bloody violence. They still wiggle sometimes. I’ve got to wonder if writing all this down is exorcising my demon maggots, or keeping them alive so I can go on shadowboxing with that powerful thing inside me that I both despise and yet cherish because it is now part of me.
Perhaps that’s why I always write at night. The shadows are stronger then, words more potent and, being my ultimate opiate, they keep me from the temptation to examine my own life, from turning to see if that bitch, Fate, is gaining ground on me, stripping me of my last shreds of humanity. In the dark, I can’t see I’m a monster.
Ugly, isn’t it? But I don’t lie to myself—and won’t lie to you. Much. Just enough to keep Ninon and I safe because, gentle reader, you aren’t the only one who follows my work, and others are likely trying to piece together the facts into a map that leads directly to their own gain, usually at our expense. So I shade the truth, practice a bit of misdirection, lie about small things—but not the essentials. Truth is a bitter drink, a vintage not much appreciated by the sinful, maybe because it doesn’t go well with fish or steak or brimstone. Still, I uncork the bottle from time to time and take a sip for medicinal purposes. It clears the mind. And on the day that it no longer tastes bitter, I will know I’m not human anymore.
Reason says I should be bitter about this, but I’m not. And that’s partly Ninon’s doing. I’d offered some of this truth to Ninon, and she had accepted, hardly grimacing at any of what had to be unwelcome revelations. She’s kind that way. I didn’t like giving her poison, but she had to know what I am and what she might become. Some things you just don’t keep secret.
But I’m digressing again.
“Hello, beautiful.” Ninon managed a brittle but still lovely smile. She reached over and twitched my shirt collar into place. It was a casual act, a small maintenance that women do for people they care about—children, lovers, spouses—and I found myself smiling again because I doubted very much that she saw me as a child. Ninon thinks I’m beautiful, in a fallen-angel sort of way. Most people—if they really believe in Hell—find Lucifer scary, but as I’ve mentioned before, very little seems to frighten this woman. Including occasional whiffs of brimstone, I guess.
“Are you ready to go?” I asked as she closed the passenger door on the Jeep. The upholstery was bald, like a dog with mange. It didn’t suit her at all, but the cat seemed to like it well enough as a scratching post.
I looked into the back of her Jeep at the lumpy tarp. I had lifted a corner earlier and had to smile. Rope, flashlights, duct tape, an axe, a toolbox, work gloves, boxes of ammunition, cans of gasoline, and a camera bag. Great minds thought alike, though I had substituted a first aid kit for a camera, and I liked a shotgun with lots and lots of shells.
“Of course.” This answer probably wouldn’t pass a polygraph, but the answer was as nonnegotiable as junk bonds after the dot-com bust. What choice did we have? We had to be ready. “Do you want to lead, or shall I?” she asked.
“Whither thou goest,” I answered. I wanted to touch her, but she looked pale and focused on what was to come. I wasn’t sure what she was seeing, and didn’t really want to know. I think we had both had enough togetherness for the time being. Neither of us was used to it, and we would need practice at sharing our thoughts and space.
“I goest north.” She jerked her head. North was an interesting choice. Wouldn’t be much there for long stretches at a time, but I didn’t question her inner compass. She seemed to have a game plan, which was more than I had.
“North it is,” I said, opening the door to the Jeep and helping her inside. As my father Cormac had been fond of saying, manners cost nothing, and Ninon, for all that she appeared very modern, would have come from a world where manners were valued. I wanted to please her. It was my way of apologizing for being a blood-sucking bastard who had enjoyed making her a vampire.
I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones.
—T. S. Eliot
The aim of common sense is to learn to be happy, and to do that it is only necessary t
o look at everything with an unbiased mind…A man’s intelligence is measured by his happiness.
—From a letter by Ninon de Lenclos
He is a worthy gentleman, but he never gave me the chance to love him…Women are never truly at ease except with those who take emotional chances with them.
—Ninon de Lenclos about the Duc de Choiseul
What does Ninon say about this?
—Louis XIV
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
At dawn, Ninon finally pulled her Jeep over at the edge of some no-name pueblo and I did the same with my SUV. We had been traveling without headlights. Neither of us needed them.
She got out slowly and stretched. The rising sun made the dark of her eyes glow like fire as she walked toward me. Her walk was graceful, but I could sense that her muscles were tight. Mine were too. We’d been off-roading in vehicles with poor shocks. Still, I sensed that something else was bothering her. I hoped it wasn’t the first twinges of bloodlust.
We have free will to make the best of our situations as we travel through life, but the road we are given to travel is arranged by Fate. This one had been rough. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating—what a bitch Fate can be. And it frustrated me that there was nothing I could do to ease the path for either of us.
“Welcome to historic Purgatory. Tourists, the line forms on the right,” I muttered, getting out to do some stretching of my own as I glanced at the sun. It was coming up, but slowly, as if the hand of some dark god were trying to push it back below the horizon so that there would be more time for the wicked to be about their business. Disturbed at the idea of any other gods getting involved with us, I looked away.
The town wasn’t an improvement of views. Purgatory was a good name. Except even Hell had rejected this place. It was dusty, forgotten, a no-man’s-land. Not even the scorpions were stirring. I’d never been in a place so dead, and I couldn’t see why Ninon had stopped here.
“All true, a horrible place—but it’s Saint Germain’s kind of place. I think it behooves us to stay here for a while and see what happens. Just leave the keys in the ignition.”
I didn’t argue. This seemed the kind of place one might want to leave quickly.
We walked. Slowly. It is hard to explain now why the abandoned pueblo was so sinister. Sure, the buildings hunched low to the ground, the edges worn away by the wind and the very adobe flaking away in leprous chunks, but so were many ghost towns and none had bothered me as this one did. Possibly it was the eerier silence there—not just the absence of people, but no cries from foraging birds, no yips from stray dogs. There was only this creepy breeze that brushed by like a stealthy cat and then moved on leaving dead calm behind.
Ninon picked a handful of debris at her feet and sniffed at the dried leaves and dirt.
“Hellebore, baneberry, belladonna…Yeah, he’s been here—grave-dowsing. He’s certainly improved on his father’s technique. Dippel used to dig at random. Saint Germain has learned how to use magic to cause mass exhumations. Look around for the cemetery. I think we’ll find it emptied.” She turned slowly, stopping to look out over the ghostly asphodels that ringed the town. Their gray petals were shivering though there was no wind that I could feel. Perhaps they were mourning their comrades who had fallen under our tires.
“Emptied? You mean…all of them?”
“Yes. He’s been raising the dead. Calling zombies. Unlike his father, he no longer has to dig them up to do the job. He’s found the way to bring the mountain to Mohammad.” She pointed. “Over there. See the toppled headstones? They are black because of lightning strikes. I guess we know what he was doing while we were playing with Smoking Mirror. Like this place wasn’t horrible enough already. I just hope he hasn’t been customizing.”
A horrible place, Ninon called it. I thought she was being generous. There was more at work here than a lack of civic pride. Frankly, it looked like Hell had spilled its guts in the desert and then crawled away in shame. It smelled a bit that way too when the sneaky wind shifted to the west.
“Why?” I asked helplessly. “And if the dead aren’t in their graves, where are they?”
“He does it because he can. Because it’s quick and expedient, and sheer numbers can overwhelm even if individually they’re fairly useless because their brains have rotted.” She paused. “The dead could be anywhere. They prefer the dark but can move around in the sun—for a while. Keep an eye out.”
“I think I’ll keep two.” We began to stroll down the street. Like gunfighters, we kept to the middle and watched each door and window, expecting an ambush in spite of the utter quiet.
I wondered, with a sort of low-grade dread, did Saint Germain want to kill us because he believed it was necessary, expedient? If killing was the correct word. Or was Ninon right? Did a part of him just plain old enjoy it? He might. And as I knew from my own experience, that urge wasn’t necessarily his own fault. His humanity was withered. Parents can really warp their children, and a part of me felt pity for the child that had been raised by Ninon’s Dark Man. I knew that my compassion didn’t change what we had to do; I just felt like I should know this man before I helped kill him. Taking a life is personal. The why of it should be examined. I had never subscribed to the old saying, Kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out.
I glanced at Ninon. Her thoughts were closed to me now. I wondered if I was equally opaque, or if she could read me if she chose to. There was a lot I didn’t know but felt I should. We were sort of kin now—though writing that makes me feel icky in an incestuous way.
I don’t know if you can understand. Sharing blood with someone doesn’t necessarily mean anything, and yet can mean everything. Ask anyone who has given birth, or, less happily, contracted AIDS. Blood counts. Certainly our little bonding ritual had made a tie more lasting than any social contract man ever drafted. Yet bound doesn’t mean loved or understood. Look at S.M. and my mother. We all shared a bond, but I did not love them. My biological father was dead—no longer a part of my world—but I still cared for him.
And Ninon. Well, hell. I wasn’t sure what I felt beyond intense attraction. One thing was certain—we had a relationship that was stronger, and that would in some form last longer, barring death by demon dismemberment, than any regular marriage.
Also, to use a clumsy metaphor, it was like I had walked through the first part of my life as a fixed telescope, seeing clearly enough but with only half the potential vision, and never able to turn away from my one view of the world. She had shown me how to be like binoculars that could turn in any direction. Linked to her, though briefly, I had witnessed vistas I had never suspected were there—some magnificent, some horrible—and I wanted that wider vision again so I could learn to fully see. Not exactly a Valentine motto. O, Love, wilt thou be my binoculars?
I cleared my throat.
“Yes?”
I’m a guy and therefore not big on talking about feelings. However, I am also a writer and understand the power of words. Words can take the strangest phenomenon and make it into something manageable, understandable. If something can be explained, it can, usually be contained.
Ninon began to smile at my silence. God! She was beautiful in the full blaze of the rising sun.
“Go on—ask. It isn’t like you to be hesitant, Miguel.”
“We’re here to kill zombies?” I asked in lieu of what was really on my mind. It seemed best to sneak up slow on my other thoughts.
“Yes. We can’t let Saint Germain set up strongholds. He’ll be as bad as Smoking Mirror if we don’t stay on top of him. I just hope that the zombies are still here and haven’t been lured away.”
I held the real binoculars to my eyes and scanned the horizon. I didn’t need them but they gave me something to do besides ogle Ninon while we were waiting for whatever was going to happen. An inappropriate impulse, and I knew it. Just—she was so damned gorgeous.
Searching for distraction, I heard myself say: “You know, for years I thought that S.M. only
went after me because I was Mamita’s son. Also because I was unfinished business. As far as I know, I am the only male vampire he has ever made. I’ve been hunting up old stones that tell his story and so far haven’t found a thing about him making male vampires.”
Ninon nodded.
“I’m not sure why he favors women, except that his priestesses can’t pass on the disease. I’ve thought sometimes that he had second thoughts about killing me because I have resisted making more vampires and therefore am no threat, but also because…” I tried to think how to put my thoughts into words. “I believe something has happened in the last few years, and he is holding me in reserve. Like banking your blood before an operation. Or finding an organ donor because you know down the road that you’ll be needing one.” I could feel Ninon staring at me. I didn’t need to look over to know she was appalled but not disbelieving. This sounded a lot like what the Dark Man had done with her. Her understanding let me talk without guilt or shame.
“Are you an organ donor?” she asked, meaning a human organ donor. I knew what she was thinking because I’d already traveled this particular road of thought.
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