Aftertaste

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Plus, I was still way too full from my last meal.

  He started fighting about then. A smoky red stream bled into his thin silver halo, and suddenly Stan wasn’t invisible anymore. He was kicking me and punching me, and head-butting me, even. I let my limbs snag his and hold him still.

  A conflagration, red and blue and green flames, filled the room around us. Pickles, smoke, toothpaste, chili peppers. Boy, did this guy have feelings now that he was completely trapped. He was totally death-suckable, but my vacuum was clogged.

  I could break him in two, or slice him up with his own scalpel, but I didn’t like the psychic resonances that would leave me with.

  I could leave. A few minutes’ work would give me a whole new body—maybe I’d be a woman for a while. A fat one.

  There was always another plane to catch, or I could switch to trains or buses for a while and live on a thinner diet. I could always fill up at a football or a hockey game, or just at a bar where people were watching some kind of sports event. I had lots of places I could explore to sample new emotions. Hospitals were legion, and I hadn’t done much with prisons yet.

  If I just left Stan there, though, he would kill again. Though it would be interesting to watch him operate on someone who gave him the kind of satisfaction he was seeking, I decided I shouldn’t let it go.

  I held him still and shot him with the stuff he’d tried to use on me. He went limp a minute or two after that, and his emotions flared up into a wall of melon-flavored fear. Okay, I couldn’t resist sucking up some of that. I’m a fool for the fruit flavors. But I managed to stop myself midsuck.

  I laid Stan carefully on the bed he had chosen. Only his eyes moved. The fear kept coming, beckoning me with its honeydew fingers.

  I picked up the phone and dialed 911. It turned out nine got me an outside line, so I had to do some redialing, but I got through to Police Emergency eventually. “Help!” I said in a voice a bit higher than the one I’d been using. “I’m in a room with the Genius Killer!” I gave my room number and our location. “He tried carving me with a scalpel! I knocked it out of his hand and got away, but he’s after me, and—” I screamed and dropped the phone.

  I leaned over Stan while I re-formed clothes appropriate to public places. His eyes darted back and forth, and his fear soured a bit.

  “Have fun,” I whispered. I grabbed my duffel and left our room.

  I didn’t leave the hotel, though. I went downstairs and hid in the plantings to make sure the police got there before Stan could escape. If he tried to get away, I would stop him again.

  It didn’t come to that. A bunch of police cars raced up, red and blue lights spinning, but no sirens. The cops swarmed into the lobby and then up to my erstwhile room, and then there was a lot of radio action and even more tasty emotions spilling all over the place, and, unfortunately, some of them tasted like apples, and some of them like blood oranges, and . . .

  Upshot is I’m holed up in an abandoned shed not too far from the hotel, getting ready to bust off a part of myself and try to convince it to act with restraint, dang it. I think I’ll take a break from extreme emotions for a while and try to subsist on a diet of library patrons.

  Bayou Brawl

  L. A. Banks

  “Can you believe this shit, Earl?” Jerome lifted his rifle and squinted into its sight and pulled the trigger. He waited until the loud crack of gunshot report echoed back and then he spit over the side of the pickup. “Damn. Missed.” He sat down with a thud and shook his head. “I swear the worl’ done gone stone crazy. My cousin Gus said military bands’re chattering ’bout UFOs and little green men, while we’re out here shootin’ rats? What kinda crazy mess is that?”

  Earl nodded and stood to take aim at another larger coypu that looked like a cross between a huge beaver and a muskrat. “Would seem like to me, if the threat was credible, they’d have the army, the air force, the navy, and the marines out there with every local law enforcement body they could muster. Betcha it ain’t no danged UFO, but they using that as a cover over the radio for a real true al-Qaeda threat, if you ask me.”

  Lowering his weapon to take dead aim at a pair of eyes reflecting in the truck’s high beams, Earl pulled the trigger and then laughed. “Hot damn! Got that sucker!”

  “Yeah, well,” Jerome argued, “then if you right, why ain’t they fixin’ to bring us in on huntin’ al-Qaeda, huh? Answer me that.”

  “I don’t know,” Earl said. “All I know is I’m up one rat on ya, buddy.”

  Arianna Paris Laveau looked out into the darkness, wondering how her life had become so mundane. A crappy economy had made taking this job necessary. Shooting coypu from the back of an NOPD pickup truck was not her idea of a good time. Yet, it was a necessary evil that fell under the jurisdiction of the sheriff’s department—a leftover vestige of bureaucratic bull from New Orleans’s previous mayor.

  Common sense would make one ask why the hell police resources were being devoted to killing the huge river rats that plagued the area when bodies were turning up under very suspicious circumstances. But common sense and politics didn’t always mix. The ex-mayor felt that preventing the damage these critters did digging burrows and causing infrastructure and roads to collapse was more important than police being devoted to cold case files. Since Katrina, he’d been on a mission to clear his name due to his very obvious lapse in judgment and leadership, so fixing the streets and shooting coypu was somehow supposed to assuage the furious electorate. It didn’t.

  Unfortunately, the current bureaucracy needed an act of council to change the edict, and until that happened, the good ole boys had to shoot coypu three days a week.

  But given that the local cops had unofficially passed the hat to pay her hourly fee, on account of their growing trepidation about the recent rash of bodies that had been found, in the back of the truck she sat.

  Superstition was simply a part of the New Orleans landscape, as much as the levees and canals were. She had a rep as being in the know with the local voodoo and hoodoo community, so hiring her to go out at night past the bats that roosted beneath highway underpasses and to accompany an NOPD truck through the dark canal zones obviously seemed like a safe bet to the men.

  Everybody in New Orleans was uneasy these days. Most folks also knew her reputation as a bounty hunter for the strange, given her membership in the long lineage of the famous Marie Laveau and Santiago Paris out of Haiti. They didn’t mess with her, just to be on the safe side, and the supernaturals didn’t either, which was fine by her. As long as there was respect, there would be peace. The supernatural community viewed her as their local sheriff—the one who mediated disputes and meted out justice where it was required. So it was all good.

  But what was really jacked up was the fact that the bodies that had been found were killed in the most bizarre ritual she’d seen, and the local authorities were calling in the local supernatural talent—under the table of course.

  Meanwhile, their men weren’t taking any chances on routine patrols. None of them wanted to be out by the canals where bats and gators and the coypu lived, just in case there was something more noxious out and about. That’s where she came in. Armed with silver shells and a silver-plated nine-millimeter, plus a rep for spell-slinging as long as her arm, she made the fellas feel better when she rode shotgun in their trucks.

  Still, no doubt about it, she had to get a life. Here she sat at thirty years old on a Friday night with a bunch of guys passing a flask, combing the desolate canal banks while they got all excited about dropping huge river rodents.

  Another crack of gunfire and the smell of cordite bled into her drifting senses.

  “You see that huge one I just got!” Earl said excitedly, slapping his fellow officer five.

  “Wait, wait, I got this next one,” Jerome yelled, aiming and squeezing the trigger. “Hot damn! Got his ass! You ain’t caught up on me yet!”

  She just looked at them both with a wan smile.

  “That’s twenty-t
wo to your eighteen,” Jerome said, and then glanced at his watch. “Shift’s over, and even with your back-to-back hits, you’re still buying the beer tonight.”

  “Aw, sheeeit, man . . . that’s the second time this week.”

  Jerome smiled and looked at Arianna with a wistful look in his eyes. “I’ll buy yours, though . . . if you wanna go with us, Ari?”

  She returned Jerome’s hopeful smile . . . not in a million years. The poor man wasn’t her type and would also freak out if he knew the kind of guys she really hung around. She looked at his big puppy dog eyes and cute dimples, set in a handsome face, and sighed. His partner was a cute blond version, all arms and legs and lankiness. But just not her.

  “Guys, it’s been a long night and if I do beers, I’ll be no good tomorrow . . . and you know the captain wants me in on the investigation . . . but you didn’t hear that from me.”

  “I understand,” Jerome said, his expression a bit crestfallen. “But you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “No, a lady can never blame a guy for trying.”

  By the time she walked into Saints and Sinners Tavern over in Bayou Saint-Jean, all the local supernatural flavor was out. That was a good thing, especially since her two favorite contacts were there.

  She slid into a booth seat next to Lamar and waited for his fantastically sexy greeting.

  “Hey, baby,” he murmured in a low, baritone growl, nuzzling her neck with the five o’clock shadow on the side of his square jaw. “Glad you could make it.”

  “I heard you howl,” she said, nipping his ear and tossing her ponytail over her shoulder.

  “It’s a full moon, Ari,” he murmured, beginning to rub her back. “What can I say?”

  “Whatcha got for me?”

  He stared into her eyes, his beginning to glow gold as his upper and lower canines began to crest within his very sexy smile. They gleamed white against his dark tan Creole complexion, and she swore his thick brunet hair was lengthening by the minute, making her hands ache to touch it.

  “You want the real answer to that . . . in here . . . or back at my den?”

  “Arianna,” a silky voice crooned, causing Lamar to look up with a warning growl.

  Jacques slid into the seat across from them and took up her other hand. With a true vampire flourish, he swept it up and kissed the back of it. “Darling . . . you must allow me to buy you a merlot. It is always a pleasure.”

  “I called the lady out for the evening, man . . . so—”

  “It’s okay,” she said quickly, and placed a palm on Lamar’s bulging bicep. “Jacques called me, too.”

  “Indeed,” Jacques said through a narrowed gaze as his fangs lowered to battle length. “But if you’d like to test the theory of gravity, we can step outside.”

  “How about that drink?” she replied, using her calm tone to dispel a possible bar brawl between rival species. “I want to hear what you know so I can help.”

  Jacques sat back and brushed off the lapels of his black leather coat, glaring at Lamar, who rolled his shoulders and slung a possessive arm around her.

  “It’s a full moon,” Arianna said, swallowing a smile, hoping that Jacques would just be cool.

  “As an immortal, I have acquired patience,” Jacques replied, somewhat mollified, but not completely. “We could compromise and make it a three-way,” he added, calling over the waitress.

  Lamar growled and leaned forward. “Only if you feel like being the receiver, motherf—”

  “I was talking about for information sharing,” Jacques said coolly, cutting off Lamar’s protest. “Or is your libido so out of control right now due to the phase of the moon that you can’t think straight? If so, maybe you need to go rectify that with one of your bitches that are in heat and allow me to have a civil conversation with the lady.”

  This time she had to broad-palm Lamar to keep him from going over the table.

  “Lamar . . .” she said in the tone that she knew always worked. “Let’s all just have a few rounds and talk, then . . . you know . . . maybe I’ll stop by for a little while tonight. Cool?”

  He sat back, gave Jacques an angry glance, and then nuzzled her again. “Promise, boo?”

  “Yeah,” she replied, rubbing his thigh.

  “Oh, give me a break.” Jacques folded his arms over his athletic chest as the waitress came over.

  But Arianna caught his gaze and held it, sending him a telepathy barb that almost knocked his head back.

  You know that he gets alpha male first rights on the full moon, oui? So . . . I’ll come see you after that—and it won’t be sloppy seconds, that I promise you. Actually, there are more nights in the month that aren’t a full moon than are. So please be nice.

  Jacques lifted his chin and ran his tongue over his incisors, retracting them very slowly and sensually. “On behalf of the lady’s wishes, I stand down for the evening.”

  The muscles in Lamar’s shoulders relaxed and Arianna released an inaudible sigh of relief. Managing two lovers from two different species was a trip. One night this was going to cause real issues, but not tonight.

  “A merlot for the lady,” Jacques crooned.

  “And whatever she wants to eat,” Lamar said in a low rumble. But then in a quick snatch he grabbed the waitress’s wrist, causing her to hiss. “Next time when you spit in my Jack Daniel’s, make sure you do it twice . . . it only makes it sweeter. But if you mess with my lady’s drink, I’ll be sure daylight finds your skank ass. We clear?”

  Arianna frowned and looked at Jacques, who shrugged with a smile.

  “Love, please do not taint the man’s drink, or his lovely guest’s drink . . . would you promise me?”

  The waitress snatched her hand away from Lamar’s hold, gave him an evil look, and stood close to Jacques. “Fine.” She leaned down and kissed his neck and then left the table.

  “Politics and passions run high here in New Orleans. What can I say?” Jacques made a tent in front of his mouth with his long, graceful fingers and gave her a wink.

  “Which brings me to the point at hand,” Arianna said, looking at both suitors, who were the best informants in town. “These strange deaths. You know if you guys have a rogue, we’ve gotta bring him or her down.”

  “The bodies were completely drained of blood,” Lamar said, looking at Jacques with an accusatory frown.

  “Correction,” Jacques replied in a peevish tone. “They were drained of all bodily fluids, and not from a neat vampire’s puncture wound, but by having their entrails sucked out of their anal orifices. Not our specialty. We don’t do entrails or mutilate bodies. That’s strictly wolf in nature.”

  “What? I’ve had just about enough—”

  “You want to go, mon ami? Let’s go!”

  Arianna jumped up and was between both entities with her arms outstretched. Other tables gave the quarreling threesome only passing glances. In a supernatural bar, it would take more than a lunge to stir the crowd.

  “Gentlemen, please. Enough of the insults and more on the matter at hand.”

  After a few minutes, both would-be combatants sat down again and the waitress, who’d been hanging back, brought their drinks.

  “This is so weird that my pack has had ground forces out tracking the terrain,” Lamar finally muttered, and took a sip of his Jack Daniel’s. “We stick strictly to deer and wild hogs in the region, but we’ve noticed some of the wildlife and livestock also have the same patterns of mutilation. Just like that bullshit that happened out west and down in Arizona and Nevada. And for the record, we’re meat eaters, true, but we butcher and eat it, not mutilate it, aw’ight. So don’t try to signify that we had some foul hand in this crap. My people are looking into it, believe me.”

  “And you know my coven is all over this, Arianna,” Jacques added, slowly sipping his blood-tainted merlot and pointedly ignoring Lamar’s outburst.

  “Then . . . ?” she said, glancing at both of them.
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  Lamar let out a heavy sigh. “My boys are saying it’s aliens.”

  She just looked at him. “Really. Lamar, be serious.”

  “See, that’s why I didn’t want to talk about this until tomorrow . . . it’ll ruin the vibe and I so do not want to ruin the vibe between us tonight, you feel me?”

  “It won’t ruin the vibe . . . it’s just—”

  “Insane,” Jacques said in a weary tone, but held Arianna’s gaze. “But as much as I hate to agree with him, plausible.”

  For a moment she’d felt Lamar’s bicep tighten beneath his leather bomber jacket, then suddenly relax.

  “Okay . . . so you guys saw it too, then, right?” Lamar waited, staring at Jacques for confirmation.

  “You have no idea how I’d hate to corroborate your theory, but oui. Satisfied?”

  “Are you serious?” She held her merlot in midair and looked from one man to the other.

  “Not much goes down in the bayou without my pack knowing about it.”

  Jacques nodded. “There are intraterrestrials like us that have been able to walk through the dimensions since the dawn of time . . . why not extraterrestrials?”

  “But them poaching in our territories is totally unacceptable,” Lamar rumbled.

  “My coven, as does the entire Vampire Cartel, agrees.”

  “The clan elders from the International Brotherhood of Were Clans are also talking a full-scale assault. They’ve been mutilating livestock and abducting humans in our zones, doing freaky experiments, you name it—since before Roswell.” Lamar took a liberal sip from his short rocks glass. “It’s fucked-up, because we eat what we kill. They don’t. They just play with their food.”

  “Mad scientists,” Jacques said, knocking the side of his blood merlot against Lamar’s glass and then Arianna’s. “Give us a bad name, when one isn’t purely earned . . . and there’s no honor to their sport. They don’t procreate with their abductions—they don’t turn a human into one of them and give them greater power . . . or feed and end the human’s otherwise banal existence.”