Certain Dark Things

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  “I think it’s a narco vampire from the North. Actually, two vampires. Necros versus Tlahuelpocmimi.”

  “And they’re in Mexico City to do what, go walk around the Alameda and get an ice cream?” Castillo asked, leaning back in his chair and knitting his hands together.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what do you know?”

  “I know there’s a kid called Nick Godoy and he has a tattoo just like the one the kid who was dancing with the dead girl had. If you told Mecía to give me a hand so I’m not at this alone and maybe if forensics actually processed evidence this century, maybe—”

  “Aguirre, Mecía is busy. There’s more than dead hookers from Santa Julia to deal with, you realize that?”

  “What does it matter what colonia she was from?” Ana asked.

  But of course Ana already knew the answer. A dead girl from a bad neighborhood who had saved her pennies so she could spend a night out on the town—who maybe was hooking, not just partying, as Castillo said—couldn’t get expediency or much attention.

  “Aguirre, we both know this junkie is likely long gone from here. Do the paperwork and close it, all right?”

  Castillo grabbed his mini-tablet, which was resting atop a pile of file folders, and began swiping his index finger across it, their meeting apparently concluded. Ana paused by the door and looked at him, skinny fucker with his cheap tie and his monumental indifference. She slammed the door shut, which gave her some small satisfaction.

  * * *

  At the Tacuba subway station Ana saw two dozen police officers—called “Robocops” because they were wearing superheavy uniforms, gear more appropriate for an old Schwarzenegger flick than anything else—take out their clubs and start beating the living shit out of a bunch of illegal street vendors who were peddling their wares near the stairs. The local city government was cracking down on street vendors and vagoneros, and this in turn meant cracking skulls. Sure, they called it “relocating,” but it did not amount to that and the vendors always came back, anyway. She assumed that the Robocops whacking people left and right were there to settle a score or impart a personal lesson, and not on official business, because normally the method they employed to scare off the vendors was throwing tear gas at them.

  Ana kept walking. Outside there were more established vendors in stalls occupying most of the sidewalk. Since they didn’t have access to proper power outlets and carried no generators, they stole power from the public electric poles. As a result poles at the street corners were tilting precariously to the side, under the weight of a myriad of cables, though they never quite plummeted to the ground.

  The competition at Tacuba was fierce, and at night each stall blinked with Christmas lights, lightbulbs, tiny neon signs, the music blaring and voices rising. There were vendors offering nuts and dried fruits, headphones, pencils and pens and markers, bubble gum, oatmeal bars. Illegal DVDs and video games for kids were located next to a stand dedicated to hardcore pornography. It was hard to walk around Tacuba with the swell of people and stalls, but Ana was tall and strong and she imposed herself even without her uniform so that most people wisely moved a bit to the side.

  She cut to the left, took a side street, then wandered down an alley until she left the bustle of the street vendors behind and continued down quieter streets. She passed a shop selling piñatas and a barbershop until she reached a small green building, its paint peeling, a large neon pyramid indicating she had reached the Center of the Unified Faith. Mexico was still resolutely Catholic, and most of the faithful in Tacuba worshipped at the old-fashioned Parroquia San Gabriel Arcángel, a great stone building that had once served as a monastery. The Center of the Unified Faith, however, was one of many New Age churches sprouting up around the country. Apocalyptic churches and the cult of the Santisima Muerte drew substantial crowds, but these New Age joints also had their devotees.

  Ana considered smoking a cigarette, but again she was missing a lighter. The front door said PUZH TO OPEN, and Ana did with a sigh. The inside of the temple was as unimpressive as the outside. Plastic flowers and strings of lights constituted the main décor, with a large golden tapestry showing a pyramid hanging behind an empty podium. The faithful sat on plastic chairs and bowed their heads, music with a faint, decidedly inauthentic Middle Eastern whiff piping in through a couple of speakers.

  There weren’t very many people in attendance. Ana followed the instructions, finding a side door and heading up to the second floor. There she was greeted by a couple of surly-looking young men in red jackets who led her down a hallway and to a large room that was wallpapered in gold and red, with an elaborate Persian rug on the floor and billowy red fabric hanging from the ceiling. In a corner, an old fan moaned as it spun its blades, tired and discontent.

  An overstuffed couch had been placed in the middle of the room, and a woman, attired in a red velvet robe, lay there, staring at the ceiling. A young man sat on the floor attempting to deseed a pomegranate. Behind the couch stood Kika, incongruous in a cocktail dress and heels. There were others, of course: men standing in a corner, the boys who had escorted her, a fellow pacing by the windows.

  “Welcome, Detective Aguirre, it’s nice of you to drop by on such short notice. Would you be wanting a drink?” the woman asked.

  “I won’t be staying long,” Ana replied.

  The woman shifted on her couch and sat up, glancing at Ana. She looked maybe close to sixty but Ana knew she was younger than her. Valentina Saade had headed Deep Crimson for nearly twenty years. She had been the girlfriend of the previous bastard who ran the criminal organization, back when it wasn’t really that much of anything. One day she must have been tired of being someone’s personal punching bag and she cut off his dick. She’d been running Deep Crimson since then, possibly because nobody wants to mess with a lady who is willing to slice off your dick with a rusty knife and possibly because she had a great deal of common sense. It was probably a bit of both.

  “But you must at least have a drink.” Valentina snapped her fingers and motioned to the young man at her feet. “Get a couple of glasses and the red.”

  “No, really—”

  “Calm down, darling, you’re not on duty.”

  Valentina smiled, showing Ana a gold tooth.

  “Funny front you’ve got yourself here,” Ana said, glancing at a large glass pyramid that sat by an open window, next to a couple of potted plants.

  “I have many spiritual concerns. Everybody does. I’m sure you’ve noticed the state of the world. All the diseases afflicting us: drug-resistant strains of gonorrhea and tuberculosis, that horrible Croneng’s disease, increasing cases of sterility, rampant violence in the streets.”

  “Yeah, a pity.”

  “I find refuge in my faith, in this holy abode. Except recently I’ve felt my sanctuary might be violated: vampires, Detective Aguirre. Vampires in our midst. It is an affront. The Condesa is mine.”

  Tacuba, Condesa, Popotla, Verónica Anzúres. Deep Crimson territory, the lot of them. With vampires controlling drugs outside the metropolis, someone had to provide the goods inside the city. Deep Crimson dealt in a lot of marijuana courtesy of fine hydroponics systems, but the big-ticket items were the synthetic drugs. A lot of their income also derived from robberies, kidnappings, and run-of-the-mill extortion. Smaller, subway gangs, composed of teenagers, generally affixed themselves under the patronage of these larger criminal groups, though there were those with entrepreneurial spirit going at it solo.

  “As I told your friend here,” Ana said, fixing her eyes on Kika, “I would be happy to look at whatever information you may have that might help me solve my case.”

  “Come now, you don’t have a case. You didn’t have one yesterday and you won’t have one tomorrow, not without us. We need to work together.”

  The young man had returned with two glasses for Valentina and Ana. Ana shook her head, rejecting the drink. Valentina had no such qualms; she gingerly grabbed the glass and drank de
eply. The young man settled by her feet once more.

  “I’m a cop,” Ana told her.

  “And a good one. Kika is impressed with your record in Zacatecas.”

  “Eight dead vampires,” Kika said, smiling at Ana.

  “I didn’t go around hunting vampires. Those vampires died because they didn’t know the meaning of the words ‘handcuffs’ and ‘arrest.’”

  Ana had always prided herself in being more John Wayne than Clint Eastwood. She didn’t love shooting random people, giddy to star in her very own spaghetti Western. Some bastards did. They became cops because they could give free rein to their desire to shoot strangers, but Ana’s grandmother had been very clear: you don’t waste your bullets needlessly.

  “The point is that they died, Detective. That’s exactly what I want: dead vampires. Kika must have communicated this point. We have resources. We have weapons.”

  Valentina motioned to Kika.

  “We could offer some form of compensation for your trouble,” Kika said, casually walking around the couch and handing Ana a small card.

  Ana grabbed it and stared at the numbers. The word “bonus” was underlined. Christ.

  “You don’t even have to kill them. You can be a consultant,” Kika said. “Easiest cash you ever made.”

  Both women smiled at her. The boy at Valentina’s feet continued working on the pomegranate. Ana looked away, her gaze fixing on the wallpaper with its pattern of fruits and vines.

  “We both want the same thing, Detective. We want safer streets,” Valentina said. “Mexico City is an oasis.”

  “You are suggesting I help you murder two people.”

  “Two criminals. Kika, do you have the information?”

  The younger woman grabbed a tablet and presented it to Ana. A photo of a corpse. Ana slid through them. Corpses and more corpses. Several were charred, unrecognizable. A woman. Blood splatters and viscera.

  “What am I looking at?” Ana asked.

  “The future,” Valentina said. “They did this.”

  “The Godoy boy and the Iztac girl did this?”

  “Godoy killed Atl Iztac’s mother. Her clan retaliated. These are the results. You’ve seen the girl that vampire killed behind the nightclub. That is the beginning. How many more corpses do you want to drag to your morgue?”

  Ana looked down at the screen again. Under the pressure of her fingers a portion of the photo she was looking at seemed to distort. Her mouth felt dry.

  “How about that drink now, Detective?”

  Valentina was toying with the stem of her glass while Kika had taken out a cigarette and was blowing out smoke rings. She wondered how this girl had gotten involved with a gang; she looked a bit too bubble gum to Ana, like a kid playing gangster.

  Then she thought of Marisol and frowned.

  Ana wanted a better life for the both of them. She certainly wanted those two vampire narcos off the streets. She was not interested in more random murders. Deep Crimson members were no saints, but who was she kidding, it wasn’t like the cops were any better. Castillo didn’t give a shit.

  Fuck it.

  “‘Consultant’ is the right word,” Ana said, speaking quickly. “I’m not bringing those two in for you. I’ll watch, you provide the muscle. And I need half up front, tonight.”

  “Give me the account number and I can initiate the transferal,” Valentina said. “Or would you rather have a plain, old-fashioned suitcase?”

  “A bank transfer is fine. From a discreet account, I hope.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it any other way. Kika, darling,” Valentina said, raising a hand and making a languid motion.

  The young woman smiled and took the tablet from Ana’s hands, fiddling with the screen and presenting it back to her. Ana entered the necessary numbers. Then the young woman pressed a button. Just like that it was done. Ana had never wanted a smoke more badly in her life, yet at the same time she felt almost relieved.

  “Weapons, you’ve considered that?” Ana asked.

  “Whatever you need,” Valentina said.

  “You can’t kill a vampire with bullets. Your best bet is a cattle prod,” Ana said.

  “That works?” Kika asked, sounding interested.

  “It stuns them, sure. Vampires are stronger and more agile than us, but they are wildly susceptible to certain stimuli. A number of chemicals induce something akin to anaphylactic shock. Some get it from coming in contact with stuff as innocent as garlic. This girl’s type, it’s silver nitrate. I’m sure you can get darts with it. We had them in Zacatecas.”

  “And the boy?”

  “I’m not sure there’s anything that can truly knock a Necros off his feet hard, except sunlight. You can smoke him a bit with UV light, but it won’t kill him. Silver blades will screw him. Bullets can also pound some damage into him, but you shouldn’t believe the lies they spew on the Internet. A gunshot, blessed bullet or not, will not kill a vampire by itself.”

  “You know your stuff.”

  Ana thought about her years spent trying to keep order in Zacatecas, and the numerous vampires she’d encountered. Yeah, she knew her stuff. She had a morbid fascination with the bloodsuckers, to be sure.

  “Don’t make the mistake of asking for actual silver bullets,” Ana added. “Lead, coated with silver, will do. Pure silver is terrible, the bullets are less accurate. And if you can’t get silver-coated bullets don’t worry about it too much. The darts are the thing to aim for.”

  “We’ll need a few days,” Valentina said.

  “Good. I’ll look for your vampires in the meantime,” Ana replied.

  “We should have a toast, to—”

  “Some other time, thanks,” Ana replied.

  She walked down the stairs without bidding Valentina a formal goodbye. When she reached the street she paused by the building’s main door, listening to the buzzing of the neon sign. The clatter of heels alerted her to Kika’s presence before she turned her head.

  “Why the hurry, Detective?” the woman asked, sliding next to her.

  “I’ve got work to do, don’t I?”

  “Then you’ll need this.”

  Kika handed her a large envelope. Ana opened it and saw that there were photos inside. Pictures of Atl and Nick. Also copies of the images she had looked at on the tablet, the parade of corpses.

  “If we have anything else we’ll let you know,” Kika said. “Right now that’s it, just pretty pictures and a bit of background on them both.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I can ask for a cab for you. It’s going to rain.”

  She could hear the faint, ugly music from inside the temple, seeping out into the street. Ana shook her head.

  “I’ll take my chances,” she replied.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Cualli was at the door, waiting for her. She rubbed the dog’s head and tossed food in his bowl before stepping into the shower.

  Atl looked at the bathroom tiles with disgust. There were traces of dark mildew between them. She supposed she shouldn’t complain. The building had running water, after all. Nonetheless, it was one more thing to despise about this damn city.

  She stood for a long time under the hot water spray. It reminded her a bit of the sweat lodge, of home, and this made her lips curl into a smile.

  Atl toweled her hair, rubbed her palm against the mirror’s surface. Nobody could accuse Mexican vampires of being pale, but there were other common signs identifying them. The redness of the eyes was the most noticeable. It crept up slowly, from lack of nourishment. A redness at first, and then their eyes grew more bloodshot until they were completely red. Mouse eyes. Mickey eyes, as they joked.

  It was far from that right now. But the dark circles had returned. She moved her head slowly, trying to figure out if she seemed too thin. But no. It was okay.

  She needed to feed more often. Vampires couldn’t live off nibbles. But if she got too greedy she’d drain Domingo dry and then her blood supply would vanish.
She wasn’t a fucking Necros who couldn’t control her appetite. It was just … she was used to overindulgence.

  She thought of Domingo’s goofy smile and his dark hair over his eyes, his bony body and long limbs. That silly question about a boyfriend …

  It was laughable—almost painful—to see Domingo trip over himself trying to please her. God, the kid was so damn … sappy. If she put a gun in his hand, he’d probably go right ahead and kill someone for her. Which is exactly what she needed. Still, it made Atl shake her head. It made her want to yell at him, demand that he get a clue. He was too naïve, a trait she did not appreciate, though she must admit there was a certain charm to his lack of guile.

  Plus, he’s not bad looking, she thought.

  Her sister would have laughed if she’d heard that. Izel said humans were the equivalent of Neanderthals compared to their own kind.

  It would be like Miranda bedding Caliban, she mused, and immediately regretted the thought. Some Necros slept with humans, but it was not a polite thing to do. The equivalent of the country bumpkin, who, lacking taste, chews with his mouth open and loudly yells to the server.

  Atl fixed herself a cup of tea and sat in the kitchen, sucking on sugar cubes.

  She imagined Izel whispering in her ear. Got a crush, have you? It would be one step above fucking sheep, that’s for sure.

  Really, she thought, rolling her eyes. You die and you’re still giving me advice in my head.

  ’Cause you need it.

  What she needed was sleep. A bit more and she was going to start hallucinating that Izel was sitting next to her. Uncomfortable conversations with your deceased relatives should be saved for the Day of the Dead or a night of binge drinking.

  Atl felt cold, another side effect of the lack of blood. She headed to the bedroom, put on her jacket, and grabbed the blanket from the floor. She slipped into the closet, curling on the floor and wrapping herself in the blanket. Domingo’s watch lay in a corner. Its soft tick was pleasant. She counted in her head as the little hand went around.