Rescue From Planet Pleasure (26 page)

Chapter Forty-seven

Devane and his two goon sidekicks stepped close to the barn door. I dipped my head and popped out my contacts.

“Anything the matter?” Devane asked suspiciously.

I said, “Not anymore,” and looked up. Right on cue, Jolie pushed the door open. We gave the Cress Tech men a full-bore vampire stare. They froze in place, auras pulsing like emergency lights. I fanged Devane—damn he tasted good. Jolie took care of the other two. She then sauntered around the doublewide toward the Humvee to finish off the driver.

Ten minutes later Jolie and I had dumped Devane into the back seat of the Humvee. Carmen followed our lead and climbed in with him. She tapped his jugular and feeling better, said she could baby-sit him. Jolie and I dragged the three other Cress Tech guards to the shed inside the goat pen. We stripped them of their gear and left them in a heap next to bags of feed and old, rusted tools. With all the vampire enzymes pumped into them, they would be dead to the world until tomorrow. Jolie stashed their carbines and ammo pouches in the Humvee.

We checked out the Humvee to see what could be of use. The urgency to rescue Coyote hovered above us like a storm cloud. My fear was that we’d find him in the same condition we had discovered Phyllis and De Brancovan. As decapitated heads impaled on stakes.

Jolie climbed into the driver’s side, I got into the front passenger’s seat. A psychotronic diviner and a radio buzzing with radio traffic were mounted on the front dash.

The first diviner I had ever seen was built by the Araneum, and this example was similar. A metal box the size and shape of a large dictionary. A fist-sized, transparent pyramid protruded from the top, a crystal fixed inside the pyramid. But the diviners fabricated by the Araneum were of an ornate, baroque construction. Filigreed polished steel, gemstones on the rivet heads, gold seams, an on-off switch fashioned from a ruby. This diviner was a plain box made of spot-welded sheet metal and a generic, hardware-store toggle switch. A USB cable connected the box to a vertically-mounted compass fastened to the middle of the dash.

“Bastards,” I said, “they’ve figured a way to get a directional fix from the diviner.” The previous examples could only detect a physic energy burst, not its location. Humans were remarkably adaptive, and that was why they were so dangerous.

The radio interrupted. “Stallion Five Seven.” The call kept repeating until someone shouted, “Stallion Five Seven, this is Pitbull Two Six. Acknowledge, over!”

Pitbull 26 had to be the bossman and Stallion better answer before Pitbull shit his pants. Then I noticed that S-57 had been scrawled on masking tape stuck to the radio.

“They’re calling us.” I plucked the handset from the radio and offered it to Carmen. “Get Devane to answer.”

He was sitting next to her on the back seat. His dilated eyes seemed to spin in crazy cartoony circles. Blood trickled from the fang marks on his throat. Carmen had his hands on her lap and massaged the webs of the flesh between his thumbs and index fingers to deepen her hypnotic control.

“Devane,” she ordered while kneading the skin, “Answer the radio. Act as if all is okay.” She let go of one hand and took the handset from me. She held it in front of Devane and pressed the transmit button.

He stared cross-eyed at the handset, blinked once, and the crazy spin in his eyes slowed. “This is Stallion Five Seven,” he replied in a clear, calm voice. “Go ahead, Pitbull.”

“Why the hell have you not been answering?” Pitbull was clear but not calm.

“We’re here, Pitbull. Status Delta One. All okay.”

“GPS shows you on the mesa in grid Alpha Tango.”

Devane blinked slowly and the crazy spin returned to his eyes. Carmen massaged him with her free hand. He gulped and answered, “That’s correct.”

“From now on, make sure you answer ASAP. Understood?”

“Roger that. Stallion Five Seven out.” Devane closed his eyes and settled against the seat as he muttered, “Douchebag.”

I took the handset and clipped it back on the radio. Carmen sighed and relaxed. Lines of fatigue etched her haggard face. Sweat beaded her hairline. I would trade places with her if possible, but there was nothing I could do now but watch her suffer.

Jolie’s brow furrowed. Distress darkened her eyes and she turned away from Carmen.

The low afternoon sun cast long shadows across the mesa and the canyon below. Crows landed on the barn roof, the fence, and the nearby junipers. The rustle of their wings and the Humvee’s radio murmured through the cool, quiet air.

We finally had wheels, so I said, “Let’s get going.” I rolled my window down and cradled the Marlin in my arms.

Jolie nodded and started the engine. The V8 diesel gave a reassuring rumble. She steered around the doublewide and followed the path that lead down the mesa.

More crows fluttered into the nearby shrub. A cool snap tightened the air. Stars blossomed in the darkening night. Traffic lights on the highway and the lamps from random dwellings burned tiny dots across the blanket of dusky earth.

Midway down the mesa, crows sprang from a stand of junipers and dispersed silent as a cloud of smoke. Curiously they gave no warning about what startled them.

The crystal on the diviner began to glow. The pointer on the compass illuminated and swung to the left. Jolie halted and rested an M4 on her lap. Carmen opened her eyes and leaned forward.

My kundalini noir tingled, and I readied the Marlin. “Phaedra?”

“No, not her.”

The junipers at our left rustled. Jolie and I pointed our guns.

“
Calmanse
,” a voice shouted. El Cucuy bulled through the junipers. His mosaic of pewter-colored skin glittered in the twilight. He brought a fist to his brow in an internationalist salute. “
Hola camaradas.
”

I never pictured him as a Marxist. I waved a greeting. Jolie relaxed her grip on the M4.

He lumbered close, an automaton of magical presence and equally important, a powerful ally. “Heard you got your asses kicked good.”

“You heard that from who?” Jolie asked.

“Rainelle.”

“Where is she?”

“Yellowhair-Chavez is watching over her.”

“Are you here to help us rescue Coyote?” I asked.

“For sure, unless you just want me to stand around and look pretty. Which I can do.” He vogued a pose.

But El Cucuy did present an unexpected problem. With the diviner locked on him, it wouldn’t detect Phaedra.

“Where’s Doña Marina?” I asked.

The boogieman mugged unconvincingly. I was about to quiz him about what she and him were cooking up when the crystal in the diviner flared brighter. The compass pointer swung to the right, away from him and to the east, down the canyon, drawn by a stronger signal.

Carmen sat up and stared out a window, in the direction the compass indicated. She didn’t have to say it, for we knew who it had to be.

Jolie stared into the distance. “What’s there?”

El Cucuy replied, “The Chaco Canyon ruins.”

I stepped to the edge of the mesa. The ruins were tucked into the folds of the ground and almost invisible. “What’s there exactly?”

“Mostly debris left by the Anasazi centuries ago. A few adobe walls. Some underground chambers.”

Bingo
. “Chambers? How big?”

“Big enough to hide someone if that’s what you’re thinking,” El Cucuy with growing comprehension.

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.” I cradled the Marlin. “In the words of the Thing from the Fantastic Four, it’s clobbering time.”

***

Chapter Forty-eight

Our Humvee rumbled over the edge of the mesa and down the road into Chaco Canyon while Jolie followed the compass heading to Phaedra. Carmen sat up front next to her. Devane remained in the back seat, comatose with vampire enzymes. I stood in the open roof hatch like I was commanding a tank.

El Cucuy refused a ride. Anyway, it wasn’t like we had a seat that would accommodate his super-sized, supernatural ass. He trotted alongside us and adroitly hopped from outcropping to outcropping.

I kept the Marlin tucked under my arm. Both my revolver and the carbine were loaded with depleted uranium-silver cartridges. The speed-loaders for the revolver, the carbine’s ammo cuff, and my pistol belt were fully stocked. My pockets bulged with the remaining rounds. When Phaedra showed herself, I was going to fill her with so much metal she could be used for ballast.

So far, all of our battles had resulted in a draw. Whenever she tried to kill us, we managed to hold her off. When we counter-attacked, she’d squirm free only to later reappear and cause more mayhem. The war continued to unfold into a deadly chess game. Move. Counter-move.

Until tonight, our tactics had been defensive, basic survival ploys improvised on the spot. Now we’d take the offensive and press forward to destroy her.

But she wasn’t stupid. She had announced herself with a tell-tale flare of physic energy and now we advanced her way.

I wondered if she was keeping Coyote prisoner at the ruins. Considering her ability to transport through the psychic portals, she could’ve stashed him someplace far away—an ice cave in Antarctica, a mountain hideaway in Nepal, a dumpster in deep space.

Then again, Phaedra needed Coyote as a pawn. So that meant she had to keep him close by to use him in her gambit to destroy us. The subterranean chambers beneath the ruins were perfect.

Move. Counter-move.

The moon rose above the horizon and washed the landscape with a silvery tint. Our destination, the Chaco ruins, remained hidden from view behind the low rolling terrain to my right.

Crows glided past the Humvee. A few at first. Then dozens.

At the bottom of the mesa, hundreds more had landed and waited. They turned and strutted parallel in our line of travel, a feathered mass of red auras so numerous they flowed like lava around the bigger rocks. Then one by one, their auras faded until they became a black undulating carpet creeping over the ground.

“Are you watching this?” I asked.

“What are they up to?” Jolie replied.

“Carmen,” I asked, “what’s your take?”

I hoped she would chime in. Not that I expected an explanation, but her silence meant she might have relapsed. Maybe I should’ve insisted on leaving her behind at Coyote’s home under El Cucuy’s protection.

Which brought to mind. Where was he? I swiveled in the hatch to look around. “Where’s El Cucuy?”

Jolie let the Humvee coast to a halt. “Why are you asking me?”

I thought he had joined us for the fight. But he had skipped out, and that made me wonder if he was scheming with Marina.

“I’m guessing that Marina must’ve sent him.”

“Why?”

“Maybe she knew all along that Phaedra was going to appear. Marina had El Cucuy make sure that we would start after her.”

“Is Marina setting us up?” Jolie snapped.

Before I could answer, a dim flicker approached over the gloomy landscape to my left. I studied the glinting light until I determined it was moonlight reflecting off rotorblades. A helicopter cruised straight for us. A Cress Tech aircraft for sure.

“Carmen, get Devane ready in case we get hailed over the radio.”

Far behind the helicopter, headlights spilled from the highway. They formed a line and convoyed along the bottom of the canyon in our direction.

The timing couldn’t be coincidental. Phaedra’s psychic burst had not only caught our attention but Cress Tech’s as well. Maybe this was her plan. Have us cross paths with them. Let the government’s goons do the heavy lifting for her. Then she could swoop in and bayonet the wounded.

We couldn’t retreat up the mesa without getting spotted. The helicopter was now close enough that we could recognize it as the massive CH-53 Sea Dragon, the one mounting psychotronic diviners. More helicopters appeared behind it. Probably Blackhawks and Apaches. The CH-53 was leading a Cress Tech posse right to the ruins … and us.

Maybe this was the true reason El Cucuy had bugged out, and if so, a little warning would have been appreciated.

I was flipping through our options when Jolie gunned the engine. We bounced to the right, away from the road and into a draw deep enough to mask the Humvee. Crows scooted out of our way.

Under the best of circumstances my Marlin and its .45-70 ammo would need a miracle to bring down the Sea Dragon. And even if we could, the other helicopters would pounce with mini-guns, 30mm cannon, and Hellfire missiles. If we abandoned the Humvee and scattered, then Phaedra could finish us off one-by-one.

Move. Counter-move.

I expected the huge CH-53 to roar over us at any second. The chatter of its blades built to a crescendo. The seconds ticked past. Still no helicopter.

More anxious seconds passed. Still no helicopter, only the staccato echo of rotorblades that rose and faded, rose and faded.

Jolie called out. “Felix, listen to this.” She turned up the volume of the radio. A chaotic jumble of frantic voices shouted over one another.

I couldn’t make sense of the chaos
.
“Climb the slope on our right,” I yelled.

The Humvee crawled out of the ravine. I stood as tall as I could in the hatch and craned my neck for a view to the canyon.

More than a mile from us, a fireball painted the landscape with splashes of yellow and orange light. A burning helicopter fuselage tumbled down the mesa cliff, breaking to pieces and shredding its rotors. Along the canyon floor, more fireballs mushroomed into glowing clouds of smoke. Tracer bullets, rockets, and flaming debris streaked through the air. The muffled booms of the distant explosions growled through the darkness.

The Humvee lurched to a stop. Jolie yelled, “What the hell is going on?”

“It’s a firefight,” I offered.

“No shit,” she replied. “But who is fighting? Phaedra versus Cress Tech?”

Another helicopter thundered over the top of the mesa right behind our heads. Its tadpole shape gave it away as a UH-60 Blackhawk. Jolie and I panned the ghostly form with our carbines to shoot, but then the helicopter’s navigation lights blinked on. The searchlight on its belly projected a glimmering saber of light toward the earth.

I shouted, “Hold your fire. They’re lighting up to identify themselves.”

Jolie dipped the muzzle of her carbine. “Who the hell are they?”

The helicopter slowed and circled back toward us, the searchlight sweeping over the sage and dirt. It stopped in a high hover and seemed balanced on the rod of light protruding from its belly. The helicopter slid downward until dust billowed beneath.

Two orange auras appeared in the cargo door.
Vampires.
They dropped and arrested their fall by levitating the last few feet into the cloud of dust. They emerged running toward us.

One vampire was short and female. The other taller and male. The closer he approached, the more he adopted a familiar gait like his hip bothered him. A slight limp complete with cane. King Gullah. I climbed from the Humvee to greet them. Carmen slipped behind me and braced herself against a fender. Despite her weakened condition, she glared at the two strangers.

The woman wore the green fatigues of the Border Patrol. I recognized her as the one in charge at the highway checkpoint, the officer who had mysteriously let us pass.

The helicopter doused its lights and accelerated into a wide orbit above us.

“You owe us a loud and sincere thank you.” King Gullah swung the cane toward the bedlam in the canyon. “If it wasn’t for Antoine, me, and the rest of my undead team, you and your merry band would be ass deep in bad trouble.”

“Thanks then,” I replied. “But you could’ve clued us in.”

“Not while Phaedra has you as target
numero uno
. Consider our silence as operational security.”

“How did you know the convoy was on its way here?” Jolie asked.

The border patrol officer tugged at her shirt collar to show off the insignia. “We have family on the inside. We got these guys shooting at each other. That fight you see is fratricide gone amok.”

“So Cress Tech is off our back for now,” I said. “I can’t imagine the load of reinforcements that’s going to follow this shitstorm.”

The agent sneered. “You’re giving the federal government too much credit. Cress Tech’s operation was buried beneath layers of deniability from the get-go. Ain’t no one copping to this disaster.”

“Which gives us till morning,” Gullah noted. “Cress Tech located Phaedra in the Chaco ruins. Once we got a fix on her,” he said, pointing his cane at the circling helicopter, “we’ll shoot so many Hellfire missiles up her ass she’ll explode like a piñata.”

“As much as I enjoy the visuals, you can’t do that,” I countered. “She’s taken Coyote hostage.”

Gullah set his lips into a hard line. He looked at the border patrol agent and she looked back at him. “Considering all that we’ve sacrificed,” he said, “and all the vampires Phaedra has killed, we have to take advantage of our firepower while we have the opportunity.”

Carmen’s aura flushed with anger and erased any sign of her impaired condition. “If you mean writing off Coyote as collateral damage,
that
is not going to happen.”

Gullah raised a finger. “Sacrifice one to end this calamity, I say that’s a bargain. If that bothers you, I’ll feel guilty enough for the both of us.”

Carmen started toward him, but I held her back. As distasteful as Gullah’s proposal was, I had to consider it. If Phaedra was betting the last of her chips and using my friend as a shield, then we had better be ready to double-down and live with the consequences.

The border patrol agent grasped the radio mike attached to her shoulder and barked an order. The Blackhawk banked and descended. She and Gullah backed away toward where they had been dropped off.

Carmen broke free of my grasp. For a vampire in such a debilitated state, she remained surprisingly strong. “We won’t do Phaedra’s dirty work. I’ll rescue Coyote on my own.”

Gullah and the agent kept backing away. Carmen kept after them. “Promise me that you won’t harm Coyote. I need your word.”

“You have my word that I’ll do what needs to be done,” Gullah said. “While you were in outer space, she was annihilating the Araneum. She tortured vampires in ways that would’ve made Vlad the Impaler cringe. When this is long past, feel free to look me up and give me hell.”

The Blackhawk slowed and swooped low. Gullah and the agent turned and sprinted toward the helicopter. They leapt and glided to the open cargo door. The Blackhawk continued in its swooping arc and climbed. The lights clicked on once, then off as if to say goodbye.

Carmen’s aura roiled in distress. “You don’t agree with them, do you?”

I didn’t answer. Jolie averted her eyes and returned to the Humvee. She understood the weight of difficult choices. Years ago she had been sent to execute me. Duty was a heavy burden. Carmen knew that, too.

Let Carmen forever condemn me, but if Phaedra thought she could hide behind Coyote, she was mistaken. If necessary, we would have to sacrifice one pawn to get the queen.

Carmen brought a hand to her head and knees buckling, she reached for the Humvee to keep from falling. She whispered, “Phaedra.”

From inside the Humvee, Jolie exclaimed, “The diviner’s really lighting up.” The glow from its crystal lit up her face.

What was Phaedra doing?

The turbines in Gullah’s helicopter hiccupped and that answered my questions. I sprang from the Humvee and looked up. The Blackhawk rocked and yawed violently. I imagined Antoine and Gullah and the others inside writhing as Phaedra’s mental ray hammered their brains. She could only use her psychic powers on one vampire at a time, but she could whip the ray from mind to mind, scrambling their thoughts into pudding.

The Blackhawk bucked like a gaffed fish and rolled onto its back. The helicopter nosed straight down and smashed into the ground, disintegrating and exploding into a monstrous shower of flame and sparks.

We stared slack-jawed at the fiery deaths of our doomed friends. Just like that, Phaedra had evened the odds.

Move. Counter-move.

The burning wreck settled against the ground and pointed down the canyon. Crows emerged from the darkness and flowed toward the ruins like pools of oil.

A glowing light with swirls of red, yellow, and green, materialized between us and the ruins.

Phaedra.

Waiting.

***