She stood up, shot one of them, but the other, he was quick. She felt the dart sink into her leg, and it let out a loud hiss. Like an idiot she’d stepped out into the street with a gun and no ammo. Her bullets were now gone and there were still five bastards against her.
Fuck it. She’d do this with her hands.
Atl took a mighty leap, landing on top of the guy who had been punching Domingo and knocked him down, slamming his head against the ground. He cried and flapped his arms, and she broke his neck so he’d stop screaming.
She turned toward Domingo, who lay sprawled on the ground, and pulled him up. “Anything broken?” she asked. “Because we may have to run.”
“No,” he replied.
Another dart. This one hit her on the shoulder and it hurt much worse than the first, causing a stabbing pain that led her to trip and fall. They were coming, the four remaining ones, and she could already feel the effects of the silver nitrate in her body.
She looked down, at the blood dripping down her leg, staining her socks, and there, next to her shoe … keys. Not her keys. Car keys. Keys to the car they were trying to stuff Domingo in. She grabbed them and rushed toward the passenger seat, opening the door and sliding inside.
“Get in!” she yelled.
They shot a third dart. It shattered the front window of the car, bits of glass raining upon her lap. Domingo shuffled onto the backseat and Cualli jumped in behind him.
She tossed her empty, useless gun onto the passenger’s seat and pressed on the accelerator. She sped away, her hands stiff against the wheel. A light turned green, turned red, and she did not care. Amber, red, green, she kept going until she felt a deep, shivering pain and had to stop. She vomited over herself. A sticky, black mess.
She stepped on the brakes, opened the car door, and stepped out, teetering and stumbling, and suddenly there was the barking of the dog and a body next to her.
“Hey,” Domingo said. “You need to drive. I can’t drive.”
“I need to sleep,” she croaked. Her legs buckled, but he was there. He helped her stand, asked her if she could take a step, and surprisingly she could. She dragged herself forward or he dragged her with him, but somehow she walked.
CHAPTER
22
It would have been easier if Domingo had his shopping cart with him. He could have tossed Atl in it and wheeled her away. Instead, he was stuck half-dragging her into the subway station. This was his territory, and he felt a lot safer once they caught a train. Atl slumped onto one of the seats, her head resting on his shoulder.
Most people didn’t even glance at them. Atl’s clothes were dark and the blood didn’t show. Even if it showed, maybe they wouldn’t have cared. He imagined they looked like two dirty street kids with their dog. They probably thought that Atl was drunk or high. Either way, nobody spoke to them.
They got off the subway car and things went pretty well until Atl had to climb the stairs leading outside the station. She lost her footing, causing two bums who were sitting by the stairs to stare at them while he whispered to her, begging her to walk with him. Domingo had to put her arm around his shoulders, pulling her up. Soon they were in the tunnels and had reached his home.
He lowered her onto the mattress and lit several lanterns, then grabbed one and placed it on a hook above the bed.
“You need to take out the darts,” she said. “My leg. My shoulder. They’re … that’s … silver nitrate. It’s … anaphylactic shock.”
“Okay.”
He rolled her pants up and found the dart she was talking about. It was burrowed deep into her flesh. When he pulled, it seemed to sink deeper and Atl let out a gasp.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s messed up. It’s embedded into your skin.”
“Yank it out,” she ordered.
“I can’t … I … wait.” Domingo took the lantern away and dashed to the other side of the chamber, opening and closing boxes until he found what he was looking for: a pair of old pliers. He had rubbing alcohol, but no bandages. He tore a T-shirt into long strips and hurried back to her side. When he set the lantern down, the shadows on the wall seemed to tilt and bob up and down.
He pressed one hand against her leg and held the pliers with the other, pulling a small, metallic needle out. Blood seeped out and he grabbed the rubbing alcohol, cleaning the wound.
“The other,” she said. Atl yanked off her jacket and rolled onto her side, her back to him.
Again he pulled out a needle, this time from her shoulder. Another had embedded itself right above her heart, and when he took it away blood sputtered like a river and though he kept pressing the T-shirt against it, it didn’t seem to stop.
“Atl, what do I do now? Do I get Elisa? Do I take you to Bernardino?”
“No. I can’t have Elisa panicking. Bernardino … never him. Okay? Too … unpredictable … dangerous.”
“Who, then?”
“Nobody. I’ll get better. I need to sleep,” she said, clutching the shirt against her chest. “Let me sleep.”
Domingo pulled a blanket over her. He boiled himself a bit of coffee over his portable stove and sat in a corner, biting his nails, thinking about what had happened and taking sips of coffee. It had been so fast. He’d barely been able to string two coherent thoughts together before chaos had exploded and some guys had been trying to pummel him into a car.
It had been scary. He’d known Atl was in a shitty situation, but it had been an abstract thought. This was real. It wasn’t something he’d read or seen on the TV. Those men had tried to put him in the trunk of a car and God knew what would have happened if they’d succeeded.
The dog came to sit next to him and they both stared at Atl for a good, long time. His coffee cooled down and Domingo crouched close to the bed. He pressed a hand against her forehead.
She was burning with fever.
He thought of the vampire comic books he’d read and the news stories he’d watched, but none of them had talked about sick vampires. Dead vampires, yeah. Dead by stake to the heart, or decapitated, or a bunch of other things. But sick vampires … he had no idea what was happening to Atl and he thought she was getting worse. Her skin was sticky with sweat and her breath was very fast, as though she’d just been running.
She needed to go to the emergency room. She needed a doctor. But if Domingo took her to a doctor they’d call sanitation, the cops.
He knelt down next to the bed, touching her arm. He noticed she was wearing the fancy watch he’d given her and he ran his hands over it.
Domingo swallowed and unbuckled the watch, stuffing it into his pocket.
He ran a hand through his hair.
“Stay with her,” he ordered the dog.
* * *
It was only ten o’clock, early for a party, but Quinto’s parties started as early as possible and ended late the next morning, so by the time Domingo slipped into the apartment a good-sized crowd had already gathered. All the windows were open to let in the night air. The music was loud and lively. He pushed his way through the living room and noticed that Belén was sitting with the Jackal. He pulled his hood up, hoping neither one noticed him, and managed to stumble into the kitchen, where Quinto was leaning against the sink, drinking a beer.
“Hey, you came!” Quinto said, clasping his shoulder. “Do you have a drink? Is your friend here too?”
“Quinto, I need a favor, all right man? I need you to come and help me with an injured dog,” Domingo said.
“A dog? Right now? Man, you’re crazy. I’ll check it out tomorrow.”
“Look, I can pay you,” he said, tossing him the watch. “It’s worth a lot of money.”
Quinto inspected the watch carefully. He frowned, giving Domingo a suspicious look. “How’d you get something like that?”
Domingo bit his lip and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter how. Come on, man. Please.”
“I don’t know.”
“We can take your car. It’ll be quick. It’s over at my place.”
�
��Maybe later.”
“Now, man,” he said, glaring down at Quinto, who was on the tiny side and generally reluctant to confront anyone.
“Shit, dude. Okay, fine. I’ll look at your damn dog,” Quinto said, gulping his beer and tossing the bottle in the sink.
They had to cross the living room to reach the door. Domingo saw that Belén and the Jackal had caught sight of him this time, and were staring in his direction.
“Hurry up, before the Jackal decides to talk to us,” Domingo said. Nothing good could ever come when the Jackal took an interest in you and Domingo didn’t need no shit that night.
Domingo shoved Quinto out the door and they rushed down the stairs.
Quinto’s car was an old, white Volkswagen beetle from the ’60s. A damn classic, Quinto said. As soon as they slid into the vehicle, Quinto blasted the tired radio with heavy metal songs in German. The music was so loud it didn’t allow for any conversation, and Domingo was grateful for that. Once they reached the tunnels, though, Quinto started humming, as was his custom.
The humming stopped as soon as they stepped into the room and Quinto took a look at his bed, which was stained with many strokes of red.
“Shit, man! What you do? Kidnap and kill a chick?”
The Doberman, which was sleeping by his mistress’s feet, raised his head when Quinto screamed.
“We had an accident. I need you to help her out.”
“What damn kind of accident? Jesus,” Quinto said.
“Just … will you look at her? She’s running a fever.”
Quinto grimaced, but sat next to Atl and rolled her onto her back. He jumped to his feet as soon as he saw her face and frankly Domingo couldn’t blame him, ’cause she looked pretty bad. She’d coughed more blood and her chin was streaked black. Her features were not wholly human. There was something of that bird of prey look about her; she seemed deformed, alien. It reminded him of a picture he’d seen of an animal called a harpy and also of someone named Medusa, and still there was a bit of beauty in the strangeness, though, just like there’s always a kind of beauty about a wild animal.
“What the hell?!” Quinto screeched. “She’s not—she’s, she’s—”
“She’s a vampire and she’s hurt,” Domingo said, cutting him off. “I need you to help her.”
“Help her? No way, man! No way!” Quinto said, waving his hands wildly.
“Yes way! Right now.”
“What do I know about vampires?”
“Well, you patch up them dogs.”
“Two years of veterinary school, dude!” Quinto said, holding up two fingers for emphasis. “That’s not the same as a vampire. No. Take your damn watch back.” Quinto tossed the watch at him.
Domingo caught it and held it tight. He took a deep breath. “If you don’t help me out, that dog’s gonna kill you,” Domingo said. He was a bit surprised to notice how calm he sounded.
“What?”
“That’s an attack dog,” Domingo said. “It’s a modified dog and it’s meant to kill people and I can make it eat your face.”
“Dude, come on,” Quinto said, attempting a laugh and only managing a pathetic, frightened half chuckle. “That’s not right.”
“Cualli,” Domingo said, and the dog growled, eyes fixed on Quinto.
“You’re serious? You’d kill me over a vampire bitch?”
Quinto had been okay to Domingo and Domingo didn’t want to be an asshole, but he forced himself to nod. ’Cause she needed him. She was depending on him. “Take a look at her.”
“All right! Keep the dog away.”
Domingo stepped back and sat on the floor. He called to the dog and it went toward him, though it gave Quinto a wary look.
Quinto took Atl’s pulse and hovered over her, pulling away the T-shirt she was clutching. “What happened to her?”
“She was shot with these darts, silver nitrate. Said she was going into shock. Ana-something shock.”
“Anaphylactic shock?”
Domingo thought that was the word. “What’s that?”
“It’s an allergic reaction.”
“What do we do?”
“I’m not sure. Look, normally I’d say give her an epinephrine shot, but she’s not human and she should be dead by now by the way she’s looking. Her heart’s racing like crazy.”
“I took the darts out but it seems to have done no good.”
“I need more light.”
Domingo grabbed one of the lanterns and held it up while Quinto stared at her legs and arms.
Quinto shook his head. “I think there are fragments of the dart in the shoulder. The arm’s swollen, too. Look, I don’t have no equipment to treat her here, not even a stethoscope. I’m not sure what you want me to do.”
“Where would you have the equipment?”
“Over at the kennels. But that’s the stuff I use on the dogs, dude. No guarantees it would help.”
“Then let’s take her there.”
“You crazy? The Jackal would have a shit fit if I took her there. He’s paranoid about the dogs. You want him breaking your arms?”
“I’ll worry about that later.”
“She’s covered in blood. My car—”
“Then we’ll wrap her in a blanket and her jacket. Let’s go.”
Quinto looked like he wasn’t going to move an inch, but the dog growled and he grabbed a blanket.
* * *
The city seemed strange as they drove to the kennels, quiet and gloomy, the only noise in the car the back and forth of the windshield wipers and the patter of the rain. Quinto wasn’t too thrilled that, on top of a vampire, he’d asked him to bring the dog along, but they’d all crammed into the Volkswagen in the end, with Atl in the backseat.
Quinto parked the car behind the old factory that had been retrofitted to serve as kennel and fighting arena for the dogs, and together they carried Atl inside. The place was a major disaster zone, a jumble of crates littering the main entrance. They walked down a narrow hallway that led to a large room filled with cages, most of them occupied by sad-looking dogs, and kept going. Their destination was the “hospital”—that’s what Quinto called it—a room that was fitted with several tables and special instruments so Quinto could patch up the dogs. Quinto turned on the lights and the room lit up.
“Over here,” Quinto said, and they lowered Atl onto a wheeled veterinary surgery table. “Christ. Okay, let me wash my hands and find my things.”
Quinto rushed around the room, pulling bottles off shelves and grabbing scissors, knives, and pliers. He dumped them onto a smaller table and dragged it next to Atl, muttering to himself.
“Okay, I see this asshole. The projectile, whatever the hell it was, broke into shards and is embedded in her arm and leg. I can clean it up and stitch her up, but I have no damn idea if I should administer epinephrine.”
“What do you mean?” Domingo asked, watching Quinto as he made a small cut on Atl’s arm.
“It could give her a heart attack for all I know. Okay, here’s one shard. Pass me that dish.”
Domingo stretched out his hand and held out a white ceramic dish. Quinto dropped a metallic sliver into it.
“I guess you shouldn’t give it to her, then.”
“Well, I don’t know. Her face is swelling. She’s lost a shitload of blood. Do I give her a transfusion? Where the hell do I get blood? I have no idea what I’m doing here. Here’s another shard.”
Quinto dropped the shard into the dish and Domingo watched him as he pulled several more bits of metal out and then stitched and bandaged Atl’s arm and leg.
Quinto kept muttering to himself. He grabbed a syringe and looked at Domingo. “I’m going to try and give her an intramuscular injection. I don’t know if this is going to help or not.” Quinto pushed the plunger down.
He took Atl’s pulse and shook his head. “Let’s try again.”
Quinto kept checking Atl’s pulse, watching her and shaking his head. “I think it’s working,” he said a
t length. “Shit. It’s like trying to treat an elephant. She’s got a ton of adrenaline pumping through her body and she barely twitches.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. There’s nothing I can do about the blood she lost.”
Domingo smoothed Atl’s hair away from her face. It was starting to change, slowly morphing into a more human shape. “And now? What do we do now?” Domingo asked.
“I think you ought to let her sleep. This is so wrong. Damn, what is it with you and girls? First you get your ass beat because of Belén and now you’re hooking up with a monster?”
“She’s not a monster.”
“Vampires … they suck people’s blood, man. Come on, you know that.”
“She’s not going to hurt me.”
Quinto gave him a skeptical sigh and crossed his arms. The light in the room was harsh, drawing stark lines upon Atl’s face so that he felt he could almost see every bone underneath her skin.
“I’m off,” Quinto said.
“What? Where? You can’t leave her alone. What if she needs help in a couple of hours?” Domingo protested.
“Yeah, I need to shower and go straight to bed.”
“Quinto—”
“Look, I’m just going to pull out the old cot you slept on a few times and nap. If she needs me, come and look for me in the back, all right?”
“All right. Thanks, by the way.”
Quinto didn’t reply. He moved toward the door, but paused to give Domingo one last look. “She’s a vampire. You need to get rid of her before it’s too late.”
Domingo did not reply. He bent down to pick up Atl’s jacket, which Quinto had tossed to the floor, and placed it on top of her, also drawing up the blanket they’d wrapped her in. He guessed he ought to find her clean clothes and a clean blanket, but there wasn’t much in terms of that around the room and he was afraid of looking outside and Atl suddenly having a relapse while he was gone. She was looking better now, but there were no guarantees she wouldn’t need more medical attention.
He patted her hand and pulled up a chair, sitting by her head.
* * *
He supposed he was dreaming, because he was standing in the middle of the desert and there was a tortoise crawling next to him. Domingo looked at it. The sun bleached the desert white, the animal looked like it was made only of bones. He turned and saw a fire burning in the distance. Smoke billowed up, black, staining the sky, but when he approached the fire had stopped burning and there were only ashes left. A pile of ashes blanketing the desert, which was now gray.
Certain Dark Things Page 17