Jolie peeled off her jacket and pistol harness and dumped them on the sofa. She asked about a bath and Rainelle pointed to the hall. Jolie snatched the makeup case and took it with her to the bathroom. Faucets squeaked and water splashed in the shower.
I heard a chopping sound outside and opened the door to see what was going on in the backyard. Yellowhair-Chavez whacked the hatchet at the middle of a pine tree log about as thick as my calf and maybe ten feet long. Carmen unfolded a small blue tarp in the middle of the yard. Coyote stood behind them and was busy untangling a rope. The three of them were discussing something in hushed voices and became quiet, turning as one toward me as if I had interrupted them.
“You need help?” I asked.
Yellowhair-Chavez returned to chopping. Hens pecked around his feet, oblivious that one day, that hatchet would come for them.
“You know anything about magic?” Coyote asked.
“I know enough,” I replied.
Coyote sneered. “How about you don’t know caca. Now get back inside and leave this to us professionals.”
“So you don’t need my help,” I replied, crossly. “What’s this for?”
“To locate Phaedra,” Carmen answered. “According to Francisco, this will let me use the psychic plane to find her no matter where she is.”
Yellowhair-Chavez didn’t add anything but only kept chopping the log.
“Leave this to us,” Carmen said. “Why don’t you get the guns ready?”
Her words were a pat on my head, but there was no point staying out here if I was getting in their way. So I returned inside. Rainelle must’ve overheard Carmen because she waited with my backpack. I’d left it here the night Jolie and I had left for D-Galtha. I pulled out a gun-cleaning kit and the boxes with the remaining silver-tipped, depleted-uranium ammo. I emptied my magnum revolver, swabbed the barrel, wiped the dust and fingerprints with a flannel rag, and worked the action. After feeding fresh rounds into the cylinder, I set the magnum aside and started on the carbine.
The shower squeaked off, and Jolie rustled in the bathroom.
I loaded the Marlin and replenished the ammo cuff on its butt stock. Jolie emerged from the bathroom, a large towel wrapped her torso and moist hair matted to her scalp. She brought the aroma of soap and shampoo and freshly scrubbed vampire. What I could see of her body was expertly covered with makeup. I was hoping she would ask me to help touchup her hard-to-reach areas, then remembered Jolie didn’t have any considering she was as flexible as Gumby.
The chopping sound outside was replaced by digging. She nodded at the door. “What’s going on?”
“Some secret magical bullshit,” I answered and repeated what Carmen had told me.
Rainelle brought clean clothes. Jolie shucked the towel and before the thought, hello momma! had even formed in my mind, she had whisked on pink panties with a skull-and-crossbones on the butt, then jeans, and a red t-shirt. She pulled a chair to the coffee table, took a seat, and field stripped and cleaned her one of .45s. She kept the other loaded and within reach on the table. Meanwhile I emptied her spare magazines to relieve the springs and then topped them off again. Jolie and I were really into gun porn.
The digging stopped. She and I quirked our eyebrows as we waited for noise from outside. When nothing sounded, we turned our attention back to our guns. I polished one of the anti-vampire cartridges. “This is the best all-purpose magic against Phaedra and her minions.”
Jolie fit her pistol back together. “I was thinking of trading these 1911s for newer handguns. FN makes a .45 with double the magazine capacity.” She inserted the clip and racked the slide. “But something about these old-school heaters speaks to me.” She aimed the pistol at the wall. “Once we pinpoint Phaedra, we strike. End this once and for all. She won’t have a chance. To paraphrase Jesus from The Big Lebowski, ‘I’m going to shove this gun up her ass and pull the trigger until it goes click.’”
Good thing Jolie was on our side. I put on my sunglasses and stepped out to measure progress of the secret project.
Coyote sat on the bottom step of the porch. He slouched against a banister and appeared ready for a siesta. Yellowhair-Chavez had cut the logs into four poles that were now planted upright in freshly dug holes. A rusted post-hole digger lay nearby. The tarp had been tied with rope to the tops of the poles to form a canopy. Carmen sat in the rectangle of shade beneath, cross-legged on a folded blanket. She faced northwest and remained in a serene yet expectant pose, hands resting on her knees.
Corn-husk dolls, vintage toy cars, clippings from ocatillo and cholla, old vacuum tubes, and bundles of sage and wild flowers circumscribed a circle around her. With the open ammo can cradled in one arm, Yellowhair-Chavez paced the circle, his attention fixed on the objects. Sweat stained the armpits and the front of his white shirt. His bolo tie was gone and his collar undone. He stopped and crouched to adjust one object, then rose to continue along the circle, adjusting the objects, occasionally swapping one for another from the can. The entire time he gave the impression that everything had to be arranged with great precision.
The skin-walker completed the circle one more time, nodding as if finally pleased with his handiwork. Closing the ammo can, he joined me in the shade slanting from the doublewide. He faced Carmen, lowered himself onto a stack of adobe bricks, and placed the can next to his boots.
This was definitely a mysterious ritual. I asked, “You’ve done this before?”
Yellowhair-Chavez kept his attention on Carmen. A minute later, as if my question had negotiated a labyrinth into his brain, he answered, “No.”
“Then how do you expect—”
His reply was quick. “Never had the chance to work the magic with a vampire like her.”
Good answer. “What do we do now?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Now it was my turn to let his question negotiate the labyrinth in my mind, and before it found the cream-filled center, he said, “We wait.”
So I sat on a step of the porch and waited. Coyote’s dog Che crawled beneath the fence and trotted to Rainelle’s pickup to plop down in the shade beside her front tire. Crows landed on the gutter of the doublewide and the roof of the barn.
The sun climbed above us. The shade narrowed to a sliver against the doublewide, and the sun beat across my shoulders and the back of my neck. Yellowhair-Chavez removed his Stetson to wipe his brow with a handkerchief. Coyote bent forward as if he was melting. But the tarp’s shadow stayed centered on Carmen despite the sun’s shifting arc. The chickens pecked along the outside of the circle of magic trinkets but never ventured inside its perimeter. Flies buzzed around us but none bothered Carmen.
I asked Yellowhair-Chavez, “I thought you skin-walkers weren’t supposed to help us.”
“We’re not, but the rules are not written in stone.”
“Are they written anywhere?”
“Beats me.”
“Then what changed your mind?”
Another pause. His thoughts must’ve been channeled back to the labyrinth. “Two things.”
More waiting.
“Phaedra might not have designs on us now,” he said, “or so she says. We Native Americans have heard that before.”
More silence.
“That’s one thing. The second?”
“It’s amazing what a man, even a skin-walker, will do for pussy.” He tipped his head back toward the doublewide.
Jolie deserved a gold star.
Che piqued his ears and rose to his feet. Our audience of crows squawked. The hens lifted their heads and cackled excitedly. The goats bleated from their pen. A rooster fluttered to a fence post and crowed. Che lay in the shade beside the doublewide and watched.
A dust devil whirled through the yard and brought an unexpected chill. Bits of dried grass and grains of dirt pelted my face and sunglasses. Loose panels on the doublewide rattled. The tarp buffeted against the tops of the poles. The wind ruffled Carmen’s hair and clothes but she remained still.
Che backed into a corner of the yard and barked. The hens flocked into the barn. The rooster hopped from the fence and crouched between the hens and Carmen. It stretched its neck and spread its wings and crowed a warning as it backed into the barn. The crows hunkered in place and cawed nervously.
The door from the doublewide swung open. Jolie and Rainelle emerged onto the porch. Rainelle clung to the door and crossed herself. Jolie cupped a .45. Both women slit their eyes and grimaced at the dirt flung against their faces.
The dust devil swirled around Carmen. The corn-husk dolls and the bundles of sage and flowers rustled in place. The filaments in the vacuum tubes began to glow. All the objects fell over and rolled in herky-jerky movements. I thought it was because of the whirling wind, but the objects were migrating to group in front of Carmen.
The tarp tore loose from one anchor. Another anchor gave way, then a third, and the tarp twisted and beat the air. Amazingly, the square of shadow remained on Carmen. Two poles clattered to the ground. The objects formed a line pointing north.
With so much supernatural energy at play, I wondered what I could see. I plucked off my sunglasses and dipped my head to remove my contacts. The sunlight lashed my eyes and I squinted painfully at Carmen.
Waves of silver light cascaded from the yellow aura that flamed around her and formed a trail across the objects. The auras belonging to Coyote, the crows, and the dog inflated and deflated like the throats of croaking frogs. Yellowhair-Chavez’s aura strobed in bizarre rectangular flashes. In spite of the sting to my eyes, I watched, fascinated. This was powerful magic and hopefully spelled doom for Phaedra. My kundalini noir began to stir. In awe and excitement at first until the tingling became an ominous twitch.
A spot in the air between the fence and the edge of the mesa began to shiver. My kundalini noir rang the alarm: Phaedra.
The spot blinked and there was Phaedra, standing on the edge of the mesa. A halo of psychic fire crowned her head. Carmen’s magic hadn’t just found Phaedra, it had brought her to us.
A ray of white light shot from her halo of fire. A deafening howl pummeled my mind. I lurched in panic. My feet slipped off the steps and I tumbled off the porch. When I looked up, I saw the ray had splattered against Carmen, blasting her flat. Phaedra shifted the ray to Coyote. He was overcome with spasms and he fell on me, twitching like he’d been tasered.
The back door to the doublewide flew open. Marina bounded down the porch steps. She threw herself on Coyote, squashing me underneath him as she screamed, “We had a deal.”
I crawled free, the sun burning my eyes, the howl echoing in my skull. Remembering that Jolie had her pistol, I screamed, “Shoot! Shoot!”
The ray whooshed toward me and hammered my brain. My arms and legs jolted from under me and I writhed in the dirt. The ray lifted and I lay still for a moment. Teeth clenched in rage, I raised my head to appraise the chaos through the blur in my eyes.
Jolie lay on the porch, squirming helplessly like I had done. Rainelle stood against the doublewide.
The crows remained paralyzed until the ray flicked them to the ground like Phaedra was plinking tin cans. The ray next washed over Yellowhair-Chavez but to no effect. He was on his feet and advancing toward her.
The ray vanished. As had the hurricane of noise. Phaedra waited menacingly.
The air beside her shimmered and a figure appeared in the spot. A vampire. She had used her psychic portal to bring him here. He flung himself from her side and dove toward us. Suicide bomber. I pressed against the ground to launch myself at him but my arms and legs quivered like splintered wood about to break.
Yellowhair-Chavez bolted toward the vampire, scrambling so fast that his hat tumbled off. Rainelle bounded from the porch and chased after the skin-walker. The suicide bomber hurdled the fence into the yard.
Yellowhair-Chavez dashed between Carmen and the vampire. The skin-walker scooped the suicide bomber in both arms and raised him high to hurl him back at Phaedra. But he put too much force behind the throw and the vampire sailed into the empty air over her, past the lip of the mesa. He dropped out of sight and exploded with an earthshaking thunderclap. A ball of smoke rolled upward.
Rainelle aimed Jolie’s pistol at Phaedra and shrieked like an avenging banshee. She jerked the shots. Pop. Pop. Pop.
A second vampire—a female—materialized, took a couple of long steps, and jumped over the fence.
Rainelle hit her once on the shoulder but the vampire kept running, fangs and claws extended.
Che lunged at the vampire and snagged her leg. She stumbled and fell. He renewed his attack, launching himself into her side. She was on all fours when he struck. The impact pushed her under the far end of the doublewide.
Yellowhair-Chavez grabbed Rainelle’s arm and flung her to the ground.
I covered my ears and flattened myself against the dirt.
The vampire exploded. The end of the doublewide bucked upward. The blast slammed the ground and the earth punched against me. The wave of over-pressure slapped my skin. A ball of flame and smoke tore through the walls of the doublewide. The windows blew out in a shower of broken glass. The pickup truck was kicked sideways and rolled onto its side. Debris rained over us. My eyes were clenched tight and yet a brilliant yellow light flooded my vision.
The light faded. The darkness returned. I opened my eyes to gather my senses. The world looked blurry and with every blink came a little more into focus. Broken glass and torn pieces of siding from the doublewide littered the ground. Embers and ash swirled in the air.
My ears still ringing from the explosion, I had to peel myself from the ground. I forced myself to fight through the confusion and pain. My fingers extended as if on remote control and clasped my revolver. I looked up and saw Phaedra.
She took a step back, the air shimmered around her, and she was gone.
***
Chapter Forty-five
I rose to my feet and staggered away from the burning hulk of Coyote’s home. One half of the doublewide had buckled on itself, the roof and walls blown out and shredded. The rest sagged like a ruined accordion. Most of the fires had died out, but the air stank of charred wood and burned plastic. The truck lay on its side like a dead hippo. Fence posts lay strewn about. Smoke lifted from the walls of the barn that had faced the explosion. Dead crows rolled off the roof and plopped to the ground beside the corpses of their comrades.
I mouthed a prayer for Che. If it hadn’t been for his selfless bravery, we’d be flat in the dirt like those dead crows, and Phaedra would’ve won. Though we had survived, we were still fucked. Backwards. Forwards. Inside and out.
The ringing in my ears turned into a keening wail. I shambled in a circle to find its source. The noise came from two people.
Marina was on her knees, hands raised, one hand clenching Coyote’s greasy ball cap, her mouth ratcheting open as she cried out, “Phaedra, you monster, what have you done with my son? We had a deal! We had a deal!”
Rainelle ran toward the doublewide, screaming, “My house! My house!” She bounded up the porch toward the door, the entrance having crumpled to half its size. Smoke plumed through the cracks.
Yellowhair-Chavez was at her heels. He seized her arm and pulled her back down the steps. She collapsed in the dirt, hands tearing at her hair.
My gaze widened from them to take in the rest of the yard. I didn’t see Coyote. He was gone. Once again Phaedra had almost kicked our ass for good. Now she had Coyote hostage, which meant another showdown on her terms. My kundalini noir drooped under the weight of so much gloom.
I counted noses to make sure the rest of us were still here. Jolie, looking pissed, wiped dust from her pistol. Carmen was sitting up, appearing as dazed as I felt.
The skin-walker crouched beside Rainelle. She leaned into him, sobbing and cursing. She stared at Marina, then shrieked, “Coyote?”
I’d forgotten that as his girlfriend, she would be as concerned about his fate as was Marina. Rainelle swiveled her
head in all directions and hollered his name. The desolation swallowed her voice and the enormous quiet, contrasted against the ruin of her home, highlighted our desperate straits.
Yellowhair-Chavez enveloped her in his massive arms and gave a hug. She wiped her tear-soaked eyes and nudged him away. She remained on her knees and appraised the scorched wreck of her home. “Che,” she cried out. “Poor, brave dog. You died proving you were the best of us.”
I helped Jolie hoist Carmen upright.
Marina pressed Coyote’s cap to her face and cried out again.
“Maybe Coyote escaped through a portal,” I offered. “He’s done that before.”
She lowered the cap and skewered me with a glare. “I know what happened. He was right under me when I felt her snatch him away.”
“Are you sure?” I replied. “He could’ve—”
“Tell me what you know about portals,” she said.
“Doña Marina,” I began, “we need to stay posi—”
Jolie put two fingers against my lips. Give it a rest.
Coyote’s mom walked to the fence—this portion was still intact—and leaned against a post. She rubbed her forehead, murmuring and sobbing.
Carmen slipped loose from Jolie and me. She raked fingers though her hair and grimaced. Her aura roiled in anger and pain. The sunlight grated my eyes. I covered them with a fresh set of contacts that I retrieved from my pocket.
Rainelle had composed herself and rose to her feet. She climbed back up the porch steps, tore loose what remained of the door, and ducked inside. Marina followed.
Yellowhair-Chavez scooped his Stetson from the ground and whisked dust from the brim and crown. He set the hat on his head and retrieved the ammo can. He gathered the charms from where they lay scattered in the dirt. Most were either broken or torn apart.
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