Rescue From Planet Pleasure

by Mario Acevedo

  The light reached the pile of heads. Phaedra’s faced the sun, so all we could see was the back of her cranium. Her hair burst into smoke. Flames jutted out her ears. Her skull softened, then collapsed as if it were a rotting pumpkin. The mass of heads beneath her crumpled, and the burning skulls scattered like loose melons. Tongues of fire licked from eye sockets, ear holes, mouths, and neck stumps. The air stank of burning meat and scorched bone.

  I felt no satisfaction at seeing Phaedra incinerate. All the misery she had caused was too high a price for the cheap thrill of watching her roast.

  The whine softened to a hum, then dwindled into silence. Smoke braided over the piles of ash. The mysterious wind that always appears afterwards swept from the south and kicked up the soot. Twists of gray corkscrewed into the sky, fading, dissolving to nothing. Some of these vampires had lived for centuries, dined on the necks of kings and queens and lorded over empires. Now nothing remained but their memory. Chaco Ruins and the surrounding mesa appeared suddenly vast and I felt incredibly small.

  The back of my head still smarted. Jolie, Carmen, and I moved like our bones were connected with rusted hinges. Our kundalini noirs were tender like the raw flesh under a scab. Even with our vampire recuperative powers, we’d still need days of rest and a diet of fresh human blood to get back our undead mojo.

  The sun climbed high enough to weaken the dawn’s light. I lifted the welder’s mask to slide sunglasses underneath and cover my eyes. Oven-hot air toasted my skin. All of the vampires removed their masks and began to unfasten the protective garments.

  As one, the crows leapt upwards. They scattered in groups of two and three and flew in all directions. Their cawing filled the canyon with a melancholy echo.

  Mel’s assistants collected the masks and clothing. Jolie donned wrap-around shades and smeared sun block to touch up the back of her hands. She offered some to Carmen, who refused with a shake of her head. Jolie held the tube for me, but I didn’t need it. She tucked it into a jeans pocket and fished out loose cartridges to top off the magazines of her .45s.

  Carmen rubbed her side like she was massaging a cramp.

  “You okay?” Jolie asked.

  “My kundalini noir has stopped hemorrhaging, but it will be days before I’ll feel normal.” Carmen lowered herself onto a large rock and sat, her expression shrinking into a thousand-yard stare. Like her, for the moment, I was done with fighting. All I wanted was to sit beside her and process all the drama and heartache we had gone through.

  I put my hand on her shoulder, and she patted my fingers. Her mirrored sunglasses reflected the mesa but of course, not me.

  Mel trundled over to us, Ray-Bans on his face. In his padded suit and thick boots, he looked like a deep-sea diver. He asked, “Everybody up and at ’em?”

  Carmen nodded and raked fingers through her stringy, sweat-matted hair. Jolie and I helped her up.

  Mel set his helmet on the ground and unzipped his suit across the front and down the legs. He shrugged out of it and kicked his boots free. He slipped a cigar from his shirt pocket and stuck it in his mouth. A crow landed by his stocking feet.

  “Now that we’re done with this business, the real work starts.” He mumbled around the cigar. “First order of business is to reconstitute the Araneum.” He pulled a memo pad from the pocket and flipped through the pages. “Now raise your left hand.”

  We raised our left hands.

  “Now bare your fangs and repeat after me. Tenebras et perpetuam noctem copias obtestor, meos immortuorum ad fidem Araneum et in perpetuum defendat, Magni Secreti.”

  I hadn’t recited those words in years, not since I was enlisted as an enforcer for the Araneum. Not every vampire swears allegiance to the Araneum, but every undead bloodsucker must protect the Great Secret. If they didn’t, they answered to killers like me.

  Mel plucked a fountain pen from his pocket. He jotted our names onto a page of the memo pad and tore it free. The crow extended one leg, a message capsule clipped to its ankle. Mel crouched to remove the capsule, unscrewed the top, and inserted the page. He replaced the top and clipped it back on the crow. It jumped past his head, circling upward, and flew toward the east.

  Wisps of smoke ribboned in the canyon from fires north of us, the wrecked vehicles from last night’s fight between King Gullah’s vampires and Cress Tech.

  “What a mess,” I said.

  “Of course it’s a mess,” Mel replied. “What else would you expect from the federal government? It’s such a big, goddamn mess they haven’t yet figured out what to do. Right now Cress Tech and the feds are so busy pointing fingers that it’ll be a few hours before any help shows up.”

  “There’s going to be a huge investigation.”

  Mel laughed. “Fuck yeah.” His cigar balanced on the edge of his bottom teeth. “The ‘huger’ the better.” He pointed to the line of towers in the distance, so far away they resembled a faint line of toothpicks. “Cress Tech and their buddies in the NSA and CIA cobbled together this scheme to discover psychic powers and communicate with aliens. And what did they get? One big goat screw. A shoot-out between friendly forces. Untold numbers of casualties. Dozens of wrecked vehicles and helicopters. Millions and millions of dollars lost. And for what?” One of Mel’s bushy eyebrows danced like a spastic, hairy caterpillar.

  I couldn’t see what Cress Tech had learned. “Nothing?”

  “Exactly. Bupkis. Imagine how bat-shit crazy this expensive cluster fuck is going to sound to Congress.”

  “If it gets that far,” Carmen added.

  “So no more psychotronic research?” I asked.

  “For now.” Mel flicked a vintage Zippo and lit the cigar. His hamster-like cheeks bellowed as he puffed, causing his steel wool-like sideburns to bristle.

  “Then are we done?” Jolie asked. “We have other business to attend to.”

  Mel snapped the Zippo closed. He tipped his head to the mesa behind us, in the direction of Coyote’s home. “Yeah, sure. Give my regards.” He saluted with his cigar.

  We returned to the Humvee and climbed in. Devane was where we had left him, balled up in the rear seat and covered by a tarp. When the poor guy finally came to, he would be groggy and stiff for another couple of days. His memory of the big, bad Cress Tech shootout would be one blank stretch of amnesia.

  Jolie did a sharp U-turn, and we four-wheeled up the mesa to Coyote’s home, or what was left of it.

  A long, gleaming Airstream trailer was parked beside Coyote’s burned-out doublewide. A Ford F-350 idled by the fence. Yellowhair-Chavez and his Navajo buddies—skin-walkers for sure—were double-checking the leveling jacks at the corners of the Airstream. They hadn’t wasted time finding a new crib for Coyote and Rainelle.

  Jolie parked, and we got out. Carmen limped a couple of steps until her gait strengthened. From somewhere around the trailer, a generator purred. Yellowhair-Chavez ceased his work and his gaze followed Jolie.

  “Your secret admirer and his leveling rod want attention,” I said.

  She shot me a dirty look, then smiled warmly at the skin-walker. He returned to inspecting the jacks.

  The door to the Airstream opened. Rainelle stepped onto a makeshift porch and waved a cheerful welcome. “Coffee’s ready. And I have tamales. Fry bread. Some fresh Type A Positive.” She made no mention that we had just survived the worst fight of our supernatural lives and acted like we had stopped by for a Sunday visit.

  “How is Coyote?” I asked.

  She held the door open for us. “Doing better.”

  “How about Doña Marina?” Carmen climbed the steps.

  “She’s inside, with Coyote.”

  “And El Cucuy?”

  “Gone,” Rainelle answered. “It’s daylight, remember?”

  The Mexican boogieman had been a good ally, but I didn’t appreciate how he and Doña Marina had used us to distract Phaedra. If I met him again, I didn’t know if I would shake his hand or kick him in the balls.

  We filed into the crowd
ed kitchen and removed our shades. Warm, homey aromas from the stove and plastic, new-trailer smells greeted us. Rainelle told us to go to the right through the dining area. The narrow door at the end stood open.

  Coyote lay on the bed, propped up on a stack of pillows. He was dressed in clean clothes, even clean socks. Doña Marina sat beside him on the mattress, dressed in a purple velour tracksuit. She was stirring a cup of porridge that smelled like raw, bloody liver. My mouth watered.

  My undead trickster friend grinned. His aura rippled around him.

  I stepped forward, but he waved me back, “Where are your manners, cabron?” He extended his hand to Jolie and Carmen. His withered face bunched around his smile, fangs jutting between thin lips. Jolie and Carmen took turns leaning over him to receive quick, grandfatherly pecks on their cheeks. He didn’t leer or try to cop a feel. I blinked in astonishment.

  Doña Marina handed him the cup, and he spooned the liver porridge into his mouth.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “Needs cilantro. And rat,” he commented, then looked at me. “Mejor, for sure.”

  His mother stood from the bed. “Now that Phaedra is dead, mijo’s wounds can heal.”

  I gave her a cross stare. “What about a thank you?”

  “I saved him, not you.” Doña Marina’s quick reply told me she knew exactly what I was getting at.

  “By playing us,” I replied.

  Carmen tugged at my arm. Let it go.

  I wanted to box Doña Marina in and make her squirm in remorse. Instead she smirked. “Men and their pride.” She presented her open hands and bowed. “Gracias, mi valiente. It’s not enough to be grateful that we won, and that my son and Carmen are safe, but I must acknowledge that your feelings are hurt. My apologies.”

  I wasn’t shamed, only more angry, mostly at myself for thinking I could best a woman in an argument. I glanced at Coyote for guidance. He scraped his spoon inside the cup. The only way for me to save face was to beg pardon from his mother.

  “Doña Marina,” I began, faking sincerity as best I could, “forgive me for …” She was gone.

  Carmen and Jolie’s eyes widened in surprise. Their gazes searched the compact bedroom as if Doña Marina could be hiding in a corner or had tucked herself into a drawer.

  “How did she do that?” I asked.

  Coyote lapped crimson pudding from his spoon. “After all this, ese, haven’t you learned a thing? Summer school for you, pendejo.”

  Rainelle called for us from the dining table. She had steaming cups of coffee and a carafe I hoped was filled with blood. We began to retreat from the bedroom.

  “Vato,” Coyote said, “I owe Rainelle a romantic getaway to show my gratitude. Someplace fancy. Maybe the Travelodge in Farmington. But I’m a little short. Could you spring me some ficha?”

  I pulled my pockets inside out. “I’m broker than you are. The last of my cash was burned up in your doublewide.”

  “So’kay. You can mail a check when you get home. Or better yet, use PayPal.”

  ***

  Chapter Fifty-two

  I was back where this adventure had begun, in my office on the second floor of the Oriental Theater. Jolie remained in New Mexico with Yellowhair-Chavez, no doubt working overtime at keeping his wigwam warm.

  Carmen lay beside me, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, hands clasped, both of us still clinging to the ebbing orgasm. The ceiling fan swirled above and its wash cooled our sweaty bodies and the moist funk between our legs. The office lights were off, but the neon glare from the marquee stuttered through the windows and bathed us with a wandering, fiery glow.

  During sex Carmen and I clutched one another like ship-wrecked survivors on a raft. Release wasn’t so much a surrender to pleasure as a respite from the anguish shrouding our minds.

  Guilt wormed through me. How much of the recent disaster had been my fault, and how much of it was inevitable? Against my better judgment I had turned Phaedra and created the monster that tore the Araneum apart and almost killed us. Before that, I had let Carmen get kidnapped by the aliens. In a curious and tragic way, the two events had coiled together, the universe undoing one mistake with another … at a price.

  Phaedra’s insurrection caused Coyote to look for help in the psychic realm. That was where he pinpointed Carmen on the far side of the galaxy. Her extraordinary empathetic powers made her a valuable treasure to the aliens. Those same powers made her a threat to Phaedra.

  I would get through this. Time heals all wounds, just as it wounds all heels. Carmen had to cope with the memory of years spent as a pet to her alien masters, never knowing if return to Earth was possible. Plus she bore the injuries inflicted by Phaedra’s psychic blasts. As did Coyote.

  The minus column to this disaster included the untold number of vampires murdered. A lot of humans had also been killed, but they were only an asterisk to the carnage. Plus I couldn’t forget the disastrous end to the Nancharm. And Che, Coyote’s fearless dog. So much bloodshed only to circle back to where we had started—with the Araneum again firmly in charge.

  Carmen was resilient, perhaps the strongest vampire of them all, and yet when she rested her head on my naked chest, I could feel the dissonant vibration of her damaged kundalini noir.

  We didn’t talk about how we felt. Why bother? We had to process the trauma on our own and shovel it into a corner like so much manure, to use either as compost for lessons learned or remain as shit to stink up our minds.

  On some nights, Carmen and I climbed on the theater roof to study the sky and sift through our recollections of D-Galtha, which was fading into dream-like memories. We stared at the stars and tracked the occasional moving lights, certain they were satellites or airplanes but secretly wishing Blossom would drop by for a visit. A very short visit, only long enough to keep us posted. Had the Wah-zhim succeeded in overthrowing the Nancharm or did the civil war within the Galactic Union continue? My kundalini noir flinched in remorse for my part in killing Moots.

  The cheerful jangle of noise from a First Friday Art Walk carried through an open window. As did the aroma of carnitas and beef, onions, and cilantro. Carmen raised her head. She let go of my hand and rose to her feet in one fluid lift.

  She grabbed a wine glass and filled it from an open bottle of pinot noir on my desk. Glass in hand, she sashayed to the window, anchored her elbows on the sill and looked out. She was haloed by the flickering light from the phallus-shaped marquee. I wiped myself with a hand towel, then rose from the rug to join her.

  We looked down on the sidewalk. About twenty people milled between the entrance of the theater and a taco truck parked against the curb. Even if anyone bothered to look up, I doubted they would’ve noticed us in the darkened window.

  Smoke rising from truck roof vents brought the delicious smells. I could use a snack. “Hungry?”

  Carmen sipped from the glass. “Maybe later. I still feel a little stuffed from my all-meat diet.” She bumped her hip against mine.

  From the window we overlooked this area of the west Highlands neighborhood. Clusters of people strolled along the sidewalk, making the circuit among the few remaining galleries. In the short years that I’d been here, gentrification had swept out a tamale shop, a comic-book store, various art studios and replaced them with a hipster barbershop, wine bars, craft breweries, upscale eateries, and one real estate office after another. On either side of the commercial strip, a rash of McMansions stood where century-old bungalows had been scraped away.

  Thankfully, the blunt-tooths remained clueless to the recent supernatural war. Just as Mel had predicted, the feds were doing their best to hide the Cress Tech fiasco in a file classified Top Secret-Never Mind. The media carried the official version—that the many casualties and the loss of equipment had been caused by a live-fire exercise gone wrong. Better to blame incompetence than admit the truth about their aborted search for psychic energy and alien contact.

  The psychotronic towers had been torn down and hauled
away. The explanation for their existence was that they were temporary antennae erected for America’s perpetual GWOT—the Global War on Terror, a.k.a. the never-ending cash cow for the military-industrial complex.

  A crow fluttered through the darkness. Carmen and I backed away to let it land on the windowsill. A message capsule glittered on its leg. The Araneum was back in business. Duty called.

  I reached to remove the capsule. The crow snapped at my hand and squawked. It stared at Carmen and raised the leg with the capsule.

  “Be my guest,” I said.

  Carmen unclipped the capsule and unscrewed the ruby-encrusted cap. Out burst the stench of rotting meat, the telltale stink of the flayed vampire flesh the Araneum used as parchment. She extended a talon from her index finger and hooked a roll of parchment from the open capsule. Unfolding the roll to the size of a postcard, she turned her back to the neon light to better illuminate the message. The light made the translucent parchment glow. When I squinted to read the words the crow nipped my arm, warning me to back off.

  As she read, Carmen chewed on her lower lip. She balled the parchment and offered it to the crow. If this was daytime, she could toss the parchment into sunlight and watch it disappear in a puff of smoke. But as it was night, the crow would have to eat it. The bird sighed and took the message from her fingers. He tossed his head back to gulp it down. The crow shut his eyes and bowed. His belly rumbled. He winced and coughed smoke, a gross stinky odor.

  Carmen replaced the cap and clipped the capsule to the crow’s leg. It turned around and flew off.

  “Well?” I looked at Carmen.

  She downed the last of the wine and returned the glass to my desk. “The Araneum has appointed me to the Central Plenum.” She wandered about my office to collect her clothes from the floor and the furniture.