“This is their in-between form, between human and animal.”
“Should we fear them?” Jolie picked up the pace.
“I fear them.” El Cucuy chuckled uncomfortably. “To the Navajo, they are the damned. But they are not here to attack. Your fight with Phaedra brought them. This is their turf.”
We reached the bottom of the mesa, and El Cucuy led us to an uphill trail. The skin-walkers ambled across the rocks to keep us in view.
Midway up the slope we heard a noise rumbling across the canyon. The ground trembled around us. At first I feared it was the return of Phaedra, but as the noise grew louder I recognized the too-familiar rhythm of helicopter rotor blades.
Three helicopters appeared in Chaco Canyon, flying low and fast, in the direction of our fight with Phaedra. Like I needed these assholes to show up. They cruised without lights and would have blended against the murky background, but thanks to my vampiric night vision, I could easily spot them. The lead chopper was a large CH-53, identical to the one we had seen yesterday with the psychotronic diviners mounted alongside. Its escort was a pair of UH-60 Blackhawks. Cress Tech must have been attracted by the psychic disturbance caused by Phaedra’s aural blasts.
The Sea Dragon hovered over the fight area. One of the Blackhawks peeled to the right, away from us, and circled Fajada Butte. The other gained altitude and banked in our direction.
El Cucuy continued up the slope, Jolie and I close behind with our arms full. We couldn’t outrun the Blackhawk, and there was no place to hide.
The helicopter slowed above the rim of the mesa. A searchlight beamed from under its nose and raked the ground. The beam swiveled to Coyote’s home and reflected off the doublewide with a dazzling glow. The shaft of light swept over the fence, the yard, and in our direction.
Just as the beam was about to wash over us, El Cucuy exploded to thousands of little Cucuys that scattered into the gloom and vanished.
The light fixed on Jolie and me, with Rainelle and Coyote in our arms. The beam held steady for a short moment, then flicked off, leaving me to blink away the spots. The helicopter turned from us and headed into the canyon.
Cress Tech was looking for something and thankfully, we weren’t it. Since their system had been triggered by huge pulses of psychic energy, they must’ve been looking for something more than two people carrying a couple of other people in their arms. To the Cress Tech crew we were probably drunken Navajos wandering the desert. Who else would be out here at this hour?
The Blackhawk joined the other two helicopters. They climbed to altitude and turned on their navigation lights, flashing red, green, and white. Forming a V—the Sea Dragon at the lead—they banked to the southeast and shrank into the distance.
“Where are they going?” Jolie asked. “Any military bases close by?”
“Kirkland Air Force Base,” I answered. “Just outside Albuquerque.”
“Anything special happen there?”
“High-tech black ops stuff.”
“I’m not surprised. What about the skin-walkers? Wouldn’t the helicopters see them?”
Good point but they hadn’t shown signs of having spotted the skin-walkers. Maybe the Navajo spirits had vanished into the night like El Cucuy.
We crossed the last fifty feet from the mesa’s rim to Coyote’s doublewide. The goats bleated. Coyote’s dog stumbled from under the doublewide like he had been sleeping off a bender. Phaedra’s minions must’ve drugged the poor mutt.
Jolie fumbled with the front doorknob and led us in. She turned the lights on, and we entered the master bedroom. I put Coyote on the right side of the queen bed and Jolie placed Rainelle on the left. I grabbed a blanket from the closet and spread it over Coyote’s naked body, partly because he needed warmth but more to spare my eyes.
Rainelle’s aura was a vivid red, the color of strawberry Kool-Aid. “She’s improving,” I remarked. “What do you think knocked her out?”
“A potion,” Jolie answered. “An injection. Something like that.”
Coyote’s aura still shimmered like a weak flame. I said, “He doesn’t look too good.”
Jolie crossed her arms and studied him. “This screws things up. He was supposed to show us how to use the Sun Dagger. Unless he gets better soon, we’re fucked if we want to save Carmen.”
I tried not to let Jolie’s pessimism further sully my already dark mood. “Let’s save those worries for later. Maybe his mom has a remedy. Maybe Coyote will get better on his own. Maybe by this time tomorrow, we’ll be back from D-Galtha, safe with Carmen.”
“Yeah, that’s likely,” Jolie replied, her voice keen with sarcasm. “And until then, we’ll count the bluebirds and rainbows shooting out of my ass.”
She grasped a bottle of Presidente brandy from the bureau. She uncapped the bottle and was about to take a sip when I said, “You know Coyote probably drank straight from the bottle.”
Wincing, she replaced the cap and set the bottle back down.
We left Rainelle and Coyote in the bedroom. Jolie and I returned to the living room and sat, me slouching on the sofa and she on the armchair. Our eyes settled on Coyote’s notes and drawings littering the coffee table. She picked up the charcoal rubbing of the Sun Dagger, squinted and tossed it back down. My sour mood reflected hers. We kept quiet. No need to dwell about the mess we were in. Looming before us was our one chance for the next hundred plus years to rescue Carmen. We’d fought Phaedra and her minions to a draw. Long minutes passed.
Rainelle appeared in the hall. Barefoot. With a bathrobe rumpled over her dress. Her short hair zigzagged in all directions. She wandered into the kitchen. Without asking, she grabbed a couple of blood bags from the fridge, tossed one to Jolie and one to me. Rainelle plugged in the water pot on the kitchen counter. Jolie and I inquired how she was doing.
“Empty headed.” She tapped her temple. “Like there’s a big hole in my brain and my thoughts are slowly filling up the space. Other than that, just pissed off.”
“And Coyote?” I asked.
“Not good. Maybe he’ll get better soon.”
“We need better than maybes,” Jolie said.
“You let me worry about him,” Rainelle replied. “If I need to, I’ll ask Doña Marina for help. How did he get hurt?”
Jolie and I gave Rainelle a rundown of the fight. When we mentioned how Coyote had been injured, she remained stoic though her eyes did mist.
The water pot boiled. Rainelle fixed herself tea. I got a rag and ran it over my Colt. She leaned across the counter and watched me as I polished the barrel of my magnum.
“Is that all you’re going to do?” she asked. “Play with your gun?”
“If we go,” rather that when we go to Fajada Butte, “I’d like something with a lot more oomph than this. Phaedra knows we’re packing heat and she’s going to up the ante.”
Rainelle slurped her tea. “I know someone. He might be of help.” She gave me a name—Francisco Yellowhair-Chavez—and an address in Farmington. “He’s a local Navajo,” she added, like that detail wasn’t obvious.
Setting her cup down, she walked around the counter. “It’ll be dawn soon.” She brought us quilts and padded about the doublewide, securing windows and closing blinds. She clicked off the light switches and the interior became dark as a tomb, which brought a nice comforting feeling. Retreating to the master bedroom, she closed the door.
An hour after sunrise, when the sun was finally at a safe height, Jolie and I crawled from under our quilts. Rainelle made coffee and toasted fry bread to go with scrambled eggs, bacon, and goat’s blood. Coyote wasn’t doing any better.
Jolie drove Rainelle’s pickup to visit Yellowhair-Chavez. I sat next to her, my head on the swivel. Rainelle stayed behind to care after Coyote.
We followed a dirt road to the highway, and my cell phone picked up the network signal. I used the GPS function to guide us to the address—Yahtahey—a sporting goods store/game processing/notary public tucked between a Lotaburger and a Ch
urch’s Chicken, both eateries definitely fine examples of traditional Native American cuisine. The parking lot around Yahtahey was plenty big. In fact, Farmington seemed more dirt parking lot than anything else.
Jolie and I entered Yahtahey. Sporting merchandise—team hoodies, uniforms, footballs, basketballs—on the right, fishing and hunting supplies on the left. We navigated past crowded shelves and spinner racks to a back counter. A short buck-toothed man in thick glasses and a mustache greeted us. When I mentioned Yellowhair-Chavez, the clerk’s eyes flared a bit, and he picked up the phone by a cash register. He spoke in a rushed, clipped tone and glanced to the ceiling. I followed his line of sight to a video camera. I sensed a reluctant tone in his voice so I mentioned that Rainelle had sent us.
The clerk relayed the comment, went “Uh-huh” a couple of times, and set the phone back on the cradle. He raised the center portion of the counter to let us pass and pointed to a door along the back wall. A loud buzz sounded from the door, and a dead bolt snapped.
Jolie followed me through. The back room was dimly lit with pools of illumination scattered beneath the ceiling. Rows of gun safes and shelves with boxes of ammo divided the room. The heads of deer, elk, and big horn sheep stared from the walls.
A man rose from behind a wooden desk at the rear of the room. A nameplate on the desk said: Francisco Yellowhair-Chavez. With a name like that I expected a blond Mexican, but his slicked-back hair was raven black with silver threads. He was heavy-set with skin burnished to a mahogany brown. Definitely Navajo.
His huge bovine-like eyes tracked us. A pale-gray cowboy hat with an enormous crown sat on his head. A huge silver and turquoise thunderbird clasped a bolo tie to his meaty throat. A silver and gold belt buckle as big as a saucer peeked beneath the swell of his substantial gut. Silver and turquoise bracelets the size of leg irons hung from both thick wrists. Everything about this man seemed massive and imposing, like he’d been hewn from a boulder.
An open laptop sat on his desk. Flags of the US, New Mexico, and the Navajo Nation hung on staffs behind his chair, and certificates and plaques decorated the wall.
I expected a greeting but he said nothing when Jolie and I halted before his desk. We were close enough that he towered over us, and we stared at each other for an uncomfortable moment. At least, I was uncomfortable. Yellowhair-Chavez could’ve had squirrels in his pants and I doubt he would’ve squirmed.
“Ahem,” I said, smiling. “Rainelle said you could help us.”
It was logical for Frankie here to ask what about. But he kept quiet.
“I need a rifle.”
Yellowhair-Chavez just kept looking at me. Didn’t blink. Didn’t twitch.
“You have something?” I glanced to a row of gun safes.
He stared and stared and finally spoke. “Six hundred dollars.” His voice was low and raspy.
“For what?”
“You are a friend of Coyote?”
“I am.”
Yellowhair-Chavez walked from behind his desk toward a gun safe. A braid hung down his back. “He owes me six hundred dollars. You have the money? If you do, settle his account. Then we can proceed.”
More of Coyote’s collateral damage to my wallet. I knew this mission to save Carmen and stop Phaedra would cost me, but I assumed in a purely emotional sense. I counted four Benjamins, Jolie kicked in another two, and we handed the bills to Yellowhair-Chavez. He folded them between his big fingers and stuffed the money into a shirt pocket.
He touched the buttons on the safe’s keypad. “I have AR-15, M1A, Kalashnikov, .243, .270. Six point five Grendel. Three-oh-eight. Swiss seven point five. 8mm Mauser. 30-06.”
“I need a gun with some balls.”
“Not the Swiss? The Mauser? The 30-06?”
“You got a .45-70?”
A smile barely curled his lips. “I thought so. You want serious artillery. I saw you last night. From the mesa.”
Jolie started, “You’re one of the skin—”
What little smile lingered on his face abruptly vanished. “There are no such things as skin-walkers.”
As an undead bloodsucker I’m immune to the creeps. Usually.
He opened the safe and plucked a Marlin Guide Gun from a rack of rifles and shotguns. With practiced ease, he worked the lever action. Click-clack! A machine oil smell puffed out. He handed the carbine to me. The gun weighed perhaps seven pounds, but its heft implied thunderbolts of destruction and pain.
Without me asking, he reached back into the locker and grasped boxes of ammunition and a cartridge belt with carbine rounds glittering in the loops. The .45-70 cartridges were as long and as thick as a finger. You could drop a T-Rex with a .45-70 and knowing Phaedra, I might have to.
“Silver bullets are problematic,” he said. “Silver is lighter than lead, which throws off the ballistics and weakens penetration.” After the silent treatment, hearing him talk this much was a surprise. Adding to the surprise was his offer of the silver bullets. This skin-walker-who-didn’t-exist knew how to kill vampires.
He gave me the belt and Jolie the boxes of ammo. “These bullets are depleted uranium with a silver jacket and a hollow-point silver core. Fifty rounds for the Marlin. Fifty for your Magnum. Another fifty for her .45s.”
Jolie asked, “How do you know about our pistols?”
Yellowhair-Chavez only stared.
I shook the Marlin. “How much?”
“Everything? A thousand dollars.”
Who knew saving the supernatural world would be so expensive. “I’m a bit short.”
“So-kay. I take credit. I got your Visa on file.” His stare didn’t waver.
My Visa number on file? How? “Uuh? Isn’t there paperwork?”
He blinked once. “Yeah … sure.” He scribbled on a Post-It note and gave it to me.
Note in hand, I turned around. Jolie and I started for the door.
“One more thing,” Yellowhair-Chavez said. “Some advice.”
I halted and faced him.
He tapped his chest. “From the heart of my people.”
What valuable Navajo wisdom was he about the share? “What’s that?”
“Don’t fuck up.”
***
Chapter Fifteen
On the way back to Coyote’s house, I sat next to Jolie in the front of the pickup. As I inspected the ammo for the Marlin, I cupped one of the large brass cartridges in my hand, careful not to touch the silver part of the bullet or I’d burn myself.
Where did Yellowhair-Chavez get these silver-tipped/depleted-uranium rounds? They had come disguised in a regular package though I knew he hadn’t bought them from a commercial source. And why was a shape-shifter stocking ammunition specifically designed to take out vampires?
Those questions aside, I was grateful that he had sold them to us. With these slugs and the extra range offered by the carbine, I could take Phaedra down as soon as I drew a bead on her evil little face.
I pushed four rounds through the loading gate of the Marlin and worked the lever to chamber a cartridge. Holding the carbine gave the impression I was doing something productive, when in truth, our plans to save Carmen were in chaos, like the scattered pieces of a puzzle.
Jolie drove without saying much. After we’d left the gun shop, she stopped at a 7-Eleven for a pack of American Spirits. She huffed on a cigarette, not looking too pleased that she’d given in to this vice. When I mentioned that I didn’t know she smoked, she remarked that there were a lot of things about her that I didn’t know and thank you very much for not minding your own goddamn business.
A moment later she tapped my arm in apology. “You must have a plan.”
“A couple. The best case is that we return to Coyote’s and find him ready to go.”
Jolie withdrew the cigarette and worried at something in her mouth. She spit a piece of tobacco. “And the not-so-best-plan?”
“We try using the Sun Dagger on our own.”
Jolie glowered at the cigarette butt, then tos
sed it onto the highway. “Worth a try I suppose. Do you think Phaedra knows about the Sun Dagger?”
“Better to assume that she does.”
We reached the turnoff for the mesa and followed the dirt road. After reaching the top of the mesa, Jolie steered through the open gate into the fenced yard behind the doublewide. Marina waited for us on a plastic crate by the door of the large shed. What I thought was a mourning shawl was draped over her head, shoulders, and arms. At the sight of the shawl, my kundalini noir quickened. Not more bad news.
Jolie parked close to her. When Marina stood, I saw what she wore was not a shawl but a black hoodie. The front was unzipped and revealed the top of a low-cut gown in siren red—a party dress, not a getup for prowling the river’s edge and scaring people. Then again, if she intended to lure men into the water, her cleavage was sufficient bait.
I got out of the truck, carbine in hand, gun belt slung over one shoulder. “How is Coyote?”
“The same, unfortunately.” Marina strutted on CFM designer pumps as she opened the shed door. The side of her gown split scandalously to mid-thigh.
The inside was gloomy, lit only by narrow blades of sunlight knifing through gaps in the siding. Dust motes swirled in the sunrays.
The shed was large enough for a pickup. Assorted car parts—fenders, tires, bumpers, seats—leaned against one wall. Farm implements—shovels, hoes, rakes, wheelbarrows, pick axes, jumbled coils of hose and rope—rested against the other wall. All the items looked ancient, rusted, or weathered—much like everything else in this part of New Mexico.
At the back of the shed, long wooden planks rested on a pair of saw horses to create a makeshift table. A cheap wooden coffin lay on top.
A faint and troubled aura glowed from the open coffin. Stepping close, I saw that Coyote lay inside, on his back, hands folded over his belly. He was fully clothed. Thankfully. Made sense Marina had put him there. The best place for a vampire to recuperate was in a coffin.
The outside of the coffin was marred with scrape marks and caked with dirt. It smelled of worms and decayed human, confirming it had been recently dug up for reuse. I didn’t ask about its former occupant.
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