Certain Dark Things

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  “I need more of the last delivery,” he said.

  There was an uncomfortable pause. “You watched the news yet?”

  “No.”

  “Turn the TV on.”

  Rodrigo grabbed the remote and flicked through the channels, stopping at a news station. They were showing footage of the outside of the factory where they’d been. The TV was on mute, but the words VAMPIRE ATTACK were superimposed upon the bottom of the screen.

  “What does that matter?” Rodrigo asked.

  “It’s gnarly, bro. The cops are looking for you.”

  “What else is new?”

  “Deep Crimson’s also looking for you. I don’t want no problems.”

  “Price is not an issue.”

  “Sorry, bro.”

  His contact hung up. Damn it. Procuring blood would become a lot more difficult now. Nick was going to wake up with an appetite and all he had were three measly bags of blood. Of course, he only had three bags because the damn kid went through them like they were candy.

  Shit.

  He wanted to get into his car and drive away. Drive until he reached a solitary beach down the Pacific coast. Trade his suits for T-shirts and shorts. Rent a house. Adopt the anonymous, boring life of a retired old man.

  He couldn’t.

  Rodrigo took a deep breath.

  He was used to solving problems. All that was required was a little creative thinking.

  * * *

  The woman called herself Dulce. He found her next to a bike repair shop, wearing a plastic, transparent poncho that allowed customers to see her underwear. She looked like she was in her midtwenties. Bubbly, though not pretty. She might have been attractive once, but time and drug use had left her with a weary, hardened look. Dulce told Rodrigo she really liked his car and suggested they go to a nearby motel—or they could do it right there in the car. He said he wanted her to go back to his place. She balked at that, but then he offered her a bit more money and told her he was doing this as a surprise birthday present for his friend, who was feeling a bit down. Her accent was northern and he added he was originally from Monterrey.

  That seemed to calm her down. On the ride back, she expressed her love of cumbias and Rodrigo replied at the appropriate intervals. Once inside the apartment, he quickly guided her to Nick’s room. Nick was sprawled over the bed, his face buried in the pillows, and Dulce stood by the door, smiling.

  “Let me wake him up,” Rodrigo told her. “Boy, is he going to be surprised.”

  Rodrigo crouched next to the side of the bed and whispered. “I have a girl for you,” he told him.

  Nick turned his head and stared at Rodrigo. His eyes were bloodshot.

  “Come here,” Rodrigo told Dulce, motioning to her. “Come here and meet my friend.”

  Dulce stepped forward, moving to Rodrigo’s side. Her pleasant, sweet smile faded as soon as she caught sight of Nick. She took a step back. Nick caught her. He was fast and she was unable to scream. All Rodrigo heard was a whimper.

  He left the room, not bothering to watch as Nick fed. He went to his studio and put on Silvio Rodríguez, listening to the soothing melodies. He ran his fingers over his books, pausing over a particularly pleasing first edition. He allowed his eyes to wander to the photo of him sitting in a convertible. Young. Optimistic. Foolish.

  He sat behind his desk and poured himself another whiskey but didn’t drink it, instead holding the glass between his hands.

  Three or four songs later there came the footsteps. The door opened and Nick walked in, his face smeared in crimson; his clothes drenched in blood. He smelled of carrion. That deep, uncomfortable stench that Rodrigo had gotten used to, working for a vampire for so long.

  “Her blood was thin,” Nick complained. “Give me a drink.”

  Nick snatched the glass of whiskey from Rodrigo’s hands and downed it.

  Of course. No gratitude from this younger generation, these children with their mouths like sharks and their vicious appetites. None whatsoever.

  “I want Atl. I want Atl’s blood and Atl’s flesh. I want her alive for a hundred days and a hundred nights, skinned and bleeding.”

  “Someone else has the same idea,” Rodrigo said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Jackal said she was suffering from silver nitrate poisoning and that one of his guys pulled several darts out of her arms. How do you think she got those? Not from us.”

  “Cops,” Nick said, rubbing the back of his hand against his mouth.

  “Not exactly standard equipment.”

  “Then who? Does it matter?”

  “There’s a detective who might know. Ana Aguirre.”

  He’d been thinking about Aguirre as the boy fed. From what his contact had told him and from Rodrigo’s own quiet inquiries, Ana Aguirre hailed from Zacatecas, where she’d developed a reputation as a vampire killer, and one who seemed to know what she was doing. While most cops thought the best way to deal with vampires was to spray them with as much lead as possible—and that did help, but wasted ammunition and manpower—Rodrigo looked at her file and saw cases of vampires who had bitten the dust thanks to anaphylactic shock, electrical shock, UV burns, and the like. It was possible, he thought, that Ana Aguirre had found Atl before Rodrigo and Nick did. It was also possible she had knowledge that would prove useful. Nothing like a vampire hunter to help them hunt a vampire.

  “You said it wasn’t the cops.”

  “I know what I said. Do you still feel hungry? I’m thinking you could use a snack.”

  Nick smiled, a ghastly, painted smile. A child’s grin set upon a horrid mask. He handed Rodrigo the empty glass.

  “I’m always up for takeout.”

  CHAPTER

  29

  Music. Atl knew she should rest, conserve her energy. Sit and heal. The music, however, made it hard to keep her eyes closed. That, and the burning headache that threatened to split her skull in two. She opened the lid of the trunk and followed the music straight into a room that seemed colder and more humid than the rest of the house, if that was possible.

  A phonograph was playing, the needle running across the worn surface of a record. She’d never seen a real vinyl record before and stood mesmerized, watching the disc spin and spin.

  “It’s called ‘Stardust,’” Bernardino said. “Most music is like nails on chalkboard to my ears, it drives me mad. This isn’t like most music, though.”

  He was sitting on a couch upholstered in brocade, a tabby on his lap. His clothes, just like the couch, were from another era. It was as if he were keeping the current century at bay.

  “It’s nice,” she said.

  Bernardino nodded, his hands resting against his cane. His fingers were long, his eyebrows joined in the middle, and he was terribly pale, his skin reminding her of a deep sea–dwelling creature. She’d never had a chance to meet one of his kind. Not that she’d wanted to.

  “How did your mother die?” he asked.

  “Decapitated. The Necros did it. Godoy, he killed her.”

  “Your sister, she is also dead?”

  Atl nodded.

  “I imagined as much.”

  “I think everyone else is dead too,” she muttered.

  “Probably not. Your lot is hardy.”

  He gently put the cat on the floor and stood up, shuffling to her side. There were stacks of records by the table and he grabbed one, switching it. The singer was a woman this time, talking about a man she loved.

  “How is the arm feeling?” he asked.

  “Fine, I suppose.”

  “Let me see.”

  Atl raised her arm and he removed the bandage, running his fingers along the stump. Atl glanced away. She didn’t want to look at it.

  “It heals well and fast,” he said, slowly placing the bandage back in its place.

  “Not fast enough for me. I need my hand.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about that.”

  She didn’t want to seem ungratefu
l, so she gave him a small smile. “Thank you, by the way. For helping us.”

  He returned the smile with a stiff nod and hunched over his records, as if looking for something else, though he made no effort to go through them.

  “My mother said you were a surgeon,” she said. She really had no idea why she had said that, since she did not want to start much of a conversation with him. Bernardino had helped them, but he still scared her.

  “For a while. When I was younger.” His mouth moved slowly, the words were sluggish.

  Bernardino stared at the phonograph, lost in thought. She didn’t think he’d say anything else, but he spoke again, his voice more animated.

  “It was interesting work.”

  In the late nineteenth century, during the Porfiriato. That was as much as she knew. Mother liked to talk about the past, but not her own past. The family’s past, the clan’s. Everything was narrated in a collective manner.

  “Did your mother tell you how we met?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “It was during the Revolution. She was just a few years older than you, I’d think. The city was going mad. It was when the soldiers rose in arms and Madero was killed. The city was ringing with the sound of bullets; corpses were burned in the middle of the streets. I was afraid I’d be killed, and had gone into hiding.”

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “I was found out and managed to run away, though they were catching up with me. I can’t recall who they were by now,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “I ran into a street, thinking they’d catch me and burn me. And then there came a rider on a galloping horse. ‘Come, come on,’ she yelled. She gave me her hand, and I jumped behind her, though for a good full minute I didn’t realize she was a girl, with that hat upon her head and the gun at her hip.

  “When we were safe, she introduced herself. At first I was suspicious, thinking maybe she’d saved my life only to rob me and toss me on the side of the road, but she had not. Like I said, she was young, she was naïve, she thought it was important to do the right thing, even if that meant saving a vampire she owed no allegiance to.”

  Atl had a hard time picturing her mother as young or naïve. She’d been the leader of their clan for nearly three decades. A determined, stern woman, but not one she could see socializing with this man, or spending any time in this cold house. Her mother loved the desert, its warm days and the nights when they could count the stars.

  “The last time I saw her it was 1979. Yes. She’d come to Mexico City for a visit, but the country was changing. The vampires were leaving. It was not good for us anymore. She came here, to see me, and told me I ought to head north, where things were much better. Of course I told her I’d never leave my house. It’s been my house for a very long time, I said. She told me I’d get myself killed, like I almost did during the Revolution, but I wasn’t afraid.

  “I knew I’d probably never see her again, so I gave her a gift. She liked to collect Aztec artifacts, your mother, didn’t she?”

  Atl remembered the house back north with its ancient pots and figurines, her mother’s fascination with archeological digs, the talk of the old clans, the old ways. It was gone now. Shattered, burned, destroyed.

  “I’d found this old jade necklace. Very beautiful. An authentic relic. I gave it to her, as a parting gift. But she was angry at me and simply broke it. The beads spilled over the floor.”

  Ah. So that’s where the bead came from. Her mother had explained nothing about its provenance, simply telling Atl and Izel that it would get them a meeting with Bernardino, if they ever needed to meet with him.

  “Perhaps she might have mentioned that time, with the soldaderas,” he said, bobbing his head up and down. Atl had no idea what he was talking about.

  “She did not tell me about what happened during the Mexican Revolution.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Only that you’d been her friend and if I ever needed help I should look for you and Elisa,” Atl said. “I could not understand how she could say you’d been a friend to her when you were of a different clan, a Revenant of all things. It sounded crazy.”

  “Most of the time we were not friends. Allies, perhaps, when circumstances demanded it. The last time she visited me, it was duty that compelled her. A favor, you might say. It doesn’t mean we’d forgiven each other, for our respective sins, but I suppose she thought she owed this to me.”

  “What sins?” Atl asked.

  “That’s a long story and much blood was spilled. But it was a long time ago. Long, long ago. I forget bits and pieces of it, but I remember her.”

  The record had stopped spinning. Silence settled into the room. Bernardino stared at her.

  “Your friend is here,” Bernardino said, his eyes still fixed on her.

  True enough, she could recognize Domingo’s footsteps. Domingo peeped into the room. He shuffled his feet, giving Atl a shy glance.

  “Are you busy?” the boy asked.

  “No,” Atl said.

  She was acutely aware of herself, of him. Having Bernardino around did not help, his eyes darting between Domingo and her with the expression someone might have when solving a crossword puzzle.

  “It’s nearly ten o’clock. We need to talk to Elisa,” Atl said.

  “You want to go to Garibaldi?” Domingo asked.

  “Yes, of course I do. We have a meeting with her.”

  “I can go by myself,” Domingo said. “You should stay here and rest.”

  “I need to speak to her. I can’t just send you out, as if you were going on an errand.”

  “But you’ve sent me on an errand before. You should—”

  “I am not going to discuss this with you,” she said, cutting him off. She already had a headache and her arm was throbbing. She wanted very much to yell at him and tell him he had not been appointed her knight in shining armor.

  “You look like shit. I bet you feel like it. You’re not strong enough to be running around the city,” he told her.

  “I can take this. I don’t know if you’ve reali—” she began, unable to believe he was contradicting her.

  “I’ll be going with you,” Bernardino said, interrupting her.

  Atl stared at him.

  “You will?” Domingo asked.

  “You do have a point. Atl is not quite herself yet. She might need my strength.”

  Domingo gave Atl a questioning look and she nodded stiffly. Despite her protestations she could feel her energy ebbing away and she had no desire to fight both of them on this point, damn them. But she’d have a chat with Domingo, later.

  CHAPTER

  30

  It rained like a motherfucker. Ana stared out the window while the other detectives typed on their computers. Several of them were probably playing online poker or watching porn. She doubted any one of them did any real work. Ana certainly couldn’t work, not today.

  Castillo had screwed her over again. Now that the case had grown bigger, she wasn’t the main detective handling it. It had gone to Luna, and the fool was spending his time giving interviews, happy to be getting his name out there. Typical attention whore.

  Ana smoked her cigarette and watched the rain fall, turning everything gray. They weren’t supposed to smoke inside the building, but it didn’t matter. Nobody enforced it.

  Her phone rang.

  “I’m feeling like we could use a talk,” Kika said. She sounded way too chipper considering the circumstances.

  “I’m working,” Ana muttered.

  “Take a break. There’s a Chinese café a few blocks from you, the Blue Lotus. You know it?”

  “I’ve walked by it.”

  “See you soon, doll.”

  Ana opened the window and flicked the cigarette butt outside. She grabbed her umbrella and walked six blocks until she reached the ratty, narrow café that Kika had mentioned. Maybe it had once been a “Chinese café,” back in the ’40s, when such establishments—a cross between a bakery
and a restaurant—proliferated and popped up through downtown Mexico City, but little remained of its heritage except for its name, written on a flickering neon sign. Inside, sad, sparse paper lanterns hung from the ceiling and a calendar proclaimed it was the Year of the Snake. She had the impression the calendar was wrong but she didn’t quite remember the Chinese zodiac.

  Kika sat near the back. She smiled at her and handed her a menu that was bent and stained. Chop suey sat next to enchiladas, a cacophony of dishes with no rhyme or reason.

  “How’s your day going?” Kika asked.

  “Shitty. Did you see the news this morning?”

  “How could I miss it? The words ‘psychopath vampire’ were splashed over El Universal,” Kika said, moving her hands as if she were holding an invisible newspaper.

  Yep. That’s exactly what it had said. The reason why Castillo had dragged Ana into his office and yelled at her, quickly blaming her for the mess. If she’d only caught the rogue vampire quickly, none of this would have happened. He told her she obviously did not know her asshole from a good lead and would now be “assisting” another detective. He’d also accused her of tipping off the reporters about the story, when she knew without a doubt it had to have been one of the photographers, trying to make an extra buck by selling crime scene pictures, or a prick like Luna. Maybe both, in conjunction.

  “I imagine it was as bad as the papers made it seem,” Kika said, glancing down at her own menu, running a finger down each item.

  “Worse. A bloodbath. There’d been a fight, so you had the people who died during it and the people the vampire killed after. He was hungry and very pissed. He ate one guy’s face.”

  “You have any witnesses? Anything?”

  “I have a witness, a person who survived the mess. Apparently a bunch of entrepreneurial folks found Atl and, since she was injured, managed to lock her in a cell. They were making a deal with Nick. He was coming to collect her. She broke out, there was a big fight, and the result is I’m not sure whether she’s dead, he’s dead, or they’re both dead somewhere.”