Rescue From Planet Pleasure

by Mario Acevedo

  She cried out again, and goose bumps returned to my arms.

  Jolie sidled close. “What’s going on?”

  I explained about La Llorona.

  “And she’s Coyote’s mom? She drowned him?”

  Coyote had once briefly given me the lowdown of his life. “Not that I know.”

  Jolie said, “I thought Coyote’s mom was La Malinche.”

  “That too.”

  “But she drowned her kids?”

  “I don’t think so. History says La Malinche had a daughter and another son. They would’ve been step-siblings to Coyote though I’m sure they never knew each other. Besides acting as Cortes’ booty call, she was also his translator and was a big reason the Spaniards got the drop on the Aztecs. That’s why in Mexico La Malinche is a synonym for traitor. In one myth, her punishment is being doomed to walk the earth as La Llorona.”

  “And the drowned kids?”

  “A metaphor for the indigenous people she betrayed to the Conquistadores.”

  Jolie’s aura sparked in annoyance. “Figures. Spanish men raped and pillaged Mexico, and it’s an Indian woman who’s pinned with the blame.”

  Our two parties halted, facing each other. Coyote introduced Jolie and me. La Malinche, La Llorona, whatever her name was, stood to our left. She looked petite and healthy considering she was over five centuries old. And between you and me, her delicate features—big shiny eyes rimmed with thick lashes, a well-proportioned nose, wide mouth with a plump lower lip—made her a real MILF. Much too pretty to be Coyote’s mother. Or rather, Coyote was too homely to be her son. Her flowing dark hair and gauzy garments fluttered dramatically despite the calm air.

  She stared at us, then at Coyote, then back at us, smiling awkwardly as if waiting for an introduction. Finally she frowned, “Coyote, where are your manners, cabezon?” She waved at Jolie and me. “I am Doña Marina.”

  Her companion resembled a velociraptor crossed with a gorilla—a lizard’s snout, beady eyes, plenty of sharp teeth, long muscular arms with fearsome clawed hands. His crinkled metallic suit seemed to be made of faceted bits of pewter that undulated like they were connected with magnets. As a vampire, I was introduced to all kinds of weird shit.

  He bowed. “El Cucuy.”

  I translated for Jolie. “The boogieman.”

  They stood at eye level.

  “The boogieman?” Her brow knitted. “I thought you would be taller.”

  “I hear that a lot.”

  “How can you change your aura colors?” she asked.

  Coyote’s mother answered. “When you’ve lived as long as we have, you learn a few things.” She made her aura glow like a stack of illuminated Lifesavers then fused the colors into a brilliant white light. Her aura dimmed to an orange that matched ours.

  “Hmmm … interesting,” Jolie remarked. “What should I call you? Doña Marina? I’m not fond of either La Malinche or La Llorona.”

  Coyote’s mother smiled. Her aura flashed a pleasant green. “Marina is fine.” She beckoned Jolie close. “What a nice girl you are. Mijo,” Marina said to Coyote, “you could learn from her. Some class for starters.”

  Coyote spurred the burro forward. “Vamanos, Rayo. Let’s go find some tequila and forget we have family.”

  Marina braided her arm with Jolie’s, and they walked together. “I bet a girl like you doesn’t drink tequila.” Marina’s voice rose as she said this, obviously for Coyote’s benefit.

  Jolie’s aura bubbled, the equivalent of a blush. Marina acted as if she didn’t notice. Truth was, I’ve seen Jolie drink enough tequila in one sitting to drown the Mexican navy.

  “Hey mijo,” Marina said, “it’s a long walk back to the house.”

  “Mom,” he replied wearily, “you want to ride the burro?”

  “No. But you could’ve asked.”

  “I never ask because you never say yes.”

  “See what I put up with up?” Yellow spines covered Marina’s aura. “What is the greater shame? Being cursed as La Llorona or enduring the pain of such a thoughtless son?”

  A plume extended from Coyote’s aura, fashioned itself into an out-sized pistol, and shot him in the head. The plume dissolved into confetti and disappeared.

  El Cucuy and I fell in behind Jolie and Marina. He leaned toward me and whispered, “Awkward.”

  Marina looked over her shoulder at me. “You’re here to help Coyote?”

  “I am, though I’m not sure how.”

  “He’s very scared by this,” she whispered, “but don’t tell him I said so.”

  Coyote flicked the reins and made Rayo trot ahead.

  “I don’t know what ‘this’ is,” I said.

  “This has to do with Fajada Butte,” Marina replied. “That’s all I know.”

  “We’re here because of a war.”

  “As if that’s a surprise. Tell me when there is no war.”

  “A vampire war.”

  “How does that change anything? One side killing another.”

  “You’re talking like we wished for this trouble. If we don’t fight, we’ll be annihilated. Maybe you as well.”

  “I don’t think so.” Her body and aura shrank to a point of light and disappeared. I blinked and searched the darkness. A moment later, a tiny light appeared to our right and grew into a column of flame. A figure materialized inside the fire. Marina.

  “Very Biblical,” Jolie offered, “but probably not much good against Phaedra.”

  “Why does it have to be Coyote?” Marina’s pleading voice sounded like any mother who grieved as a child marched off to battle. Even the ugly ones.

  “Why does it have to be any of us?” I answered.

  Jolie pointed at El Cucuy. “What’s your business in this war?”

  He raised his hands and shook them. “Keep me out of this. I’m only here to keep Marina company.”

  We reached the doublewide. A rust-colored cur—a dust mop on legs—lunged at Coyote, barking and wagging its tail.

  He reached for the dog. “Che, come here.”

  “Che?” I asked. “Odd name for a dog.”

  “Why, vato? What else could I name him? He’s a red dog.”

  The door opened. A woman appeared in silhouette behind a screen door. Red aura. Human. Hair cut short and spiky. She stepped barefoot onto the small wooden porch and propped the screen door against her plump hip. “You finally made it, slowpoke,” she said to Coyote.

  He introduced Jolie and me. She was his girlfriend. Rainelle Tewa.

  “You’re Felix?” she asked. “The one with Coyote’s money?”

  I gave him the stink eye.

  Rainelle was a stocky woman and on the busty side, though she was hardly the over-endowed queen that was Coyote’s last amante. She was dark skinned. Round face with almond eyes. A patchwork dress and bangles on her wrists made her look especially Hopi Bohemian. I wondered if Rainelle was Coyote’s chalice but she didn’t wear a scarf or a collar that would’ve identified her as a vampire’s feedbag.

  She hip-checked the door and held it wide. “You guys come inside. Doña Marina,” she said to Coyote’s mom, “you want to join us?”

  She replied no.

  “Cucuy?”

  “I’ll hang out with her. We need to practice scaring people.”

  Marina eased into the night, her aura dimming as she screeched, “Donde estan mis hijos?”

  El Cucuy sauntered beside her and howled, “Bleah! Boo! Booga! Booga!”

  Coyote rode Rayo into the pen around the first adobe building, let the burro loose with the dog, and returned. He stepped through the door and Rainelle scolded him. “Wipe your feet.”

  “You’re sounding like my mother.”

  “Then you should listen to her.”

  The doublewide creaked and shifted as we entered through a tiny kitchen. Every doublewide I’d ever been in had a unique odor, and this one was no different. A greasy cooking smell clotted the air.

  Second-hand furniture—a threa
dbare sofa, chipped and battered chairs, bookcases sagging with knickknacks, a coffee table covered in rings from the bottoms of cups—crowded the worn carpet of a living room lined with fake-wood vinyl paneling.

  A heavy-set man filled a wingback chair like a hermit crab in its shell. He had ruddy, peeling skin and bushy Elvis sideburns. A Peterbilt trucker’s cap. A turquoise bolo tie with a Zia sun cinched the collar of a western shirt. His eyelids drooped, and his head bobbed to whatever tune played through the earbuds that climbed like a vine from the pocket of his canvas vest. Coyote didn’t introduce him—or us—and up close, the guy reeked of peyote.

  Jolie sat next to me on the sofa.

  Rainelle brought a baking pan covered with a dishtowel and set it on the coffee table. She made more trips and brought soup bowls filled with grilled cobs of corn, sliced peppers, onion, and chunks of goat meat.

  Coyote slapped the trucker’s knee with a length of thin copper tubing. The trucker cracked his eyelids, loosened his bolo tie, and spread his shirt collar to bare his neck. He tilted his head to one side.

  Coyote gestured that Jolie bring one of the bowls. He spit on one end of the tubing and screwed it into the trucker’s neck. He held the other end of the tube over the bowl. Blood flowed out the tubing like a thick sauce and drenched the food. My bowl was next. Rainelle held the last bowl for Coyote.

  When his bowl was filled, Coyote popped the tube from the trucker’s neck, then licked his thumb and mashed it over the hole. Vampiric enzymes would heal the wound. He sucked out the blood remaining in the tube. A moment later he pulled his thumb from the trucker’s neck, and the wound had scabbed over.

  The trucker raised one hand and rubbed his fingertips together.

  Coyote looked at me and pointed to the hand.

  I pulled out my wallet and slapped two fifties into the trucker’s palm. First time that I’d ever paid a chalice.

  He stuffed the money into a vest pocket, pulled a pair of sunglasses from another pocket, and put them on. He settled into the chair and resumed bobbing his head.

  The blood steamed in our bowls. Rainelle uncovered the pan to offer loaves of fry bread. She tore the bread into pieces and handed them to Jolie and me. “Hurry, eat, before it gets cold.”

  I slathered blood over a corncob like it was melted butter.

  Jolie folded the meat and vegetables into the blood. “When do we start our mission to get Carmen?”

  Coyote squeezed next to me on the sofa and shoveled a spoon into his bowl. A warm meal. Back at home. Back with his woman. He should’ve been content. But his aura percolated with dread.

  “Tomorrow we’ll visit Fajada Butte and I’ll explain what you need to know.”

  ***

  Chapter Eight

  We sopped the last bit of blood with fry bread and handed our empty bowls to Rainelle.

  It was two in the morning, and our biorhythms were thoroughly messed up. As vampires, creatures of the night and all that, we’re supposed to keep nocturnal hours. But we live among humans, and to get anything done, we have to abide by their day-job schedules. Venturing into the sunlight wears us out, and after a few days, vampires need to recuperate by sleeping during the day, preferably in a coffin.

  Coyote said we were welcome to crash in his doublewide, as if we had much choice. He and Rainelle slept in the master bedroom. The second bedroom was stuffed with a pirate’s booty of clothes, footwear (many still in boxes), small appliances (some also in boxes), and electronics.

  That left the living room with the trucker-chalice passed out on the armchair. His rosy-red aura pulsed so serenely it could’ve purred. Jolie called dibs on the sofa, which left me the carpet. Rainelle brought pillows and blankets, all marked with the Motel 6 logo. Jolie and I stripped to our skivvies. She folded those muscular shanks of hers under a blanket, then shoved her .45s under a pillow. I tucked my magnum under mine.

  With every snore, the trucker-chalice ratcheted down the armchair until his ass scooted off the edge of the cushion, leaving the nape of his neck hooked on the seat back.

  Jolie and I tried our best to ignore his snoring until we could no longer stand his loud-as-a-chainsaw rumblings. At the same instant, we bolted to our feet and each of us grabbed one of his arms. We hauled him to the door of the living room. I kicked it open. We pitched the trucker-chalice off the porch onto a stack of hay bales, where he collapsed like a broken marionette, still snoring and smacking his lips.

  The cool night air beckoned for vampiric mischief. But we had a long day tomorrow so we closed the door and lay down to sleep.

  Early in the morning, Rainelle woke me as she padded through the living room. I lay on the floor and watched her pull the curtains tight so no outside light could peek through.

  Coyote must have taught her the precautions needed to protect us vampires. It was at dawn that the sun’s rays were at their deadliest and even the thickest layers of sunscreen weren’t much help. The best protection was to remain indoors with the windows covered by thick opaque curtains, behind which us brave monsters hid like trapdoor spiders.

  I glanced at my watch. Still another hour until dawn. I pulled the blanket over my head and went back to sleep.

  It seemed like a moment later when something hit me. “Hey, ese.” Coyote was tapping my shoulder with his shoe. “Get up.”

  Yawning, I curled upright and smelled coffee brewing. Jolie sat on the sofa, moist hair pinned back, and was busily applying a foundation of Dermablend. My watch read 9:42 a.m., well into the safe zone of morning.

  Coyote set cups of black coffee and a creamer with goat’s blood on the coffee table. Rainelle offered fry bread fresh out of the toaster.

  Jolie asked Coyote about his mom.

  He snorted dismissively. “It’ll be another hour before she comes home. Probably doing the Walk of Shame.”

  Jolie quirked an eyebrow at me. With El Cucuy?

  I shrugged. None of our business.

  After breakfast, Jolie visited the second bedroom and sorted through the clothes. She traded her leather touring pants for jeans and her motorcycle boots for a pair of cross trainers. But she kept her Joe Rocket jacket. Gotta look badass.

  A half hour later she and I were bouncing in the bed of a battered Ford 150. Slathered in sunscreen. Sunglasses on. Pistols cleaned, oiled, and loaded. Extra ammo in our pockets. With Rainelle at the helm, the pickup clattered toward the rim of the mesa. Coyote sat next to her, his window open and the breeze batting his collar and the ragged strands of hair that poked from under his ball cap. The Rolex glittered on his thin wrist, and the over-sized Ray-Bans on his bony, dark face made him look like an emaciated fly.

  The sky was an unspoiled blue. I breathed the fragrant sage and the homey smell from wood fires. Our problems seemed distant, and I wondered if it would be a crime if we played hooky from saving the world.

  We passed a line of fence posts made of discarded car bumpers and drive shafts. The pickup dropped off the edge of the mesa onto a road steep as an Olympic toboggan run. Rainelle jiggled the steering wheel and kept us on course—barely—as we caromed down the slope. I was almost pitched out and Jolie clutched my arm. Seconds later, I returned the favor. I comforted myself by hoping this ride might be the most dangerous leg of today’s journey.

  I caught Rainelle checking her hair in the rearview. For her, this suicide drop was just another day at the ranch.

  At the bottom of the hill, the road forked with a trail that meandered over the rolling, open ground. Rainelle gunned the engine and followed the bumpy trail. The truck shook so hard I was certain it was going to fall apart, and Jolie and I were tossed about like ping-pong balls in a raffle cage.

  Miles later, Rainelle ran out of trail and halted on the top of a shallow hill. Even with a 4x4, this desert would murder anything on wheels. Coyote climbed out, as did Jolie and I, grateful for steady earth beneath our feet. Our destination, Fajada Butte, loomed miles ahead, a wrinkled truncated thumb rising from the desert floor. With a wave, Raine
lle shifted into reverse, swung the truck between two cactuses, ground the gears, and rumbled away.

  Jolie took off her sunglasses and polished the lenses with her t-shirt. She put them back on and faced Coyote. “Now you’re going to tell us how we’re going to get Carmen?”

  “No point to it.” He started walking, all sharp angles and baggy clothes, like an animated scarecrow. “Not until we get to the butte.”

  Jolie and I fell in step behind him. She asked, “If this is so goddamn important, why don’t you fill in the details?”

  He didn’t answer and started to trot.

  I asked, “Where’s your burro?”

  “Rayo’s on sabbatical, ese.”

  We jogged over rocks and crusted sand, but Fajada Butte didn’t appear to be getting any closer. The sun rose directly overhead, and its autumn light beamed on us bright and barely warm.

  A thirst itched my throat, and I realized that none of us had brought water or blood. Unless Coyote knew of a stash of hemoglobin, we were in for long, miserable foray through this wilderness.

  A rumble echoed across the openness. The sky was too clear for the sound to be thunder. The rumble deepened and grew into a menacing thump, thump, thump.

  Helicopter.

  At any moment, I expected to see another Blackhawk pop over the horizon. Not sure of how to react, I took my cue from Coyote, and he continued, unconcerned.

  Jolie swiveled her head to get a bearing on the noise.

  A rotor disk climbed from behind a hill to our left. The disk rose and lifting beneath it appeared the transmission hump, then the engine pods, then a helicopter big as a locomotive. A gigantic CH-53 Sea Dragon roared straight for us.

  Another glance at Coyote. He kept jogging, and so did we.

  The immense helicopter cruised at a hundred feet in altitude and at a slow, even speed, maybe thirty miles an hour. Long lattice booms stuck from each side of the fuselage. Each boom was tipped with a large psychotronic diviner that slewed left and right in a steady, synchronized tempo.

  The Sea Dragon gained on us. The ground trembled. The aircraft grew huge and terrifyingly loud, a twenty-ton storm cloud of metal and noise.