The Chaos Order (Fanghunters Book Three) (18 page)

Vincent took the papers, then grabbed her hands. She flinched.

“Yes, I know who I’m talking to,” he said as he began moving her around in a small, slow circle. “Ah, remember when we used to Waltz until the early hours of the morning, Miranda?”

Miranda smiled. “Yes, Vinny. But, that was a long time ago.”

“And you haven’t aged a bit.”

“Neither have you.”

Vincent came to a stop. He stared at her brown eyes; at the small puffs that had developed beneath them. He remembered when she was young, fresh; those eyes were captivating, innocent. Regret swelled in his heart. Poor Miranda, another victim of these cruel creatures he’d waged battle against. He ran a finger down her cheek, a tear welling in his eye.

“I
have
aged, Miranda. On the inside. The pain of others is what’s aged me.”

“You’re worried about Trixie.”

“Yes.”

“She’s strong. And she’s got Dom with her.”

“I know. But, I’ve lost so many—”

Miranda placed a finger over his lips, hushing him. “She’ll be okay. I promise.”

Vincent hugged her, rubbing her shoulders. He wasn’t so sure. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Outside, the rain continued to pour.

F
elix rushed into Eddie’s office with a black trash bag in his hand and an excited grin on his face. “Hey, Eddie, you wanna come help me with this?”

Eddie turned away from his laptop and stared at the bulging bag in Felix’s hand. “What is it?” he asked, not liking the look of that bulge.

“The security guys found one of those snakes by the river,” Felix answered, his voice loaded with enthusiasm. “Dead. We should do experiments on it.”

Eddie frowned. “We should?”

Felix gave him a wide-eyed, grave stare. “Oh yes. We should!”

Eddie puffed his cheeks. “Okay,” He said in an unsure voice, as he stood and followed Felix, who’d already scuttled down the corridor to an empty lab room. There was an anxious, excited motion to Felix’s walk that had Eddie nonplussed. What was he so excited about a snake for?
It’s just a snake.
The river flooded after the rain and it’s encouraged an influx of snakes to the area. Nothing strange about that.

Felix held the lab door open for Eddie, who strode in and stood over to the side with his arms crossed over his chest. “Well?” he said. “Let’s see this worm then.”

Felix gave him a nonchalant grin before he dumped the bag in a surgical tray sitting on a nearby table; it hit the metal tray with a meaty thud that made Eddie wince. Felix grabbed the bag and held it upside down. A coiled mass fell out from inside into the tray. Felix’s eyes lit up. He threw on a pair of surgical gloves, his eyes never leaving the thing in the tray.

“
Oooh
, baby,” he cooed as he gathered it up and held it high in the air. He moved to the side of the table; the snake’s head was inches from the floor. “What a beaut!” he declared, gazing at the intricate green and black diamond pattern etched along it. “Got good girth too!” Felix added. “Kinda reminds me of something else,” he said, rubbing his chin and raising his left eyebrow.

“You wish, nerd,” Eddie retorted.

Felix cackled like a witch as he went and slapped the snake down on a nearby dissecting table. It smacked the metal surface like a meaty salami. Felix clapped his hands. “Right. Scalpel,” he requested, pointing at the implements near to where Eddie was standing.

Eddie huffed. He grabbed a scalpel from the sideboard and handed it to Felix.

“Thank you, doctor,” Felix said. He stood over the snake and ran his gloved hand along it, studying the creature with careful eyes. He then flipped it over. “Ah-ha!” he said, pointing at a rupture around halfway up its pale belly. “So, we got a wound here in the heart area. By my reckoning, its heart has been pierced, which, in my opinion, is what caused death.”

“That’s great work, detective,” Eddie stated. “You should move into pathology.”

Felix looked up at him and grinned. “Hey, that’s not a bad idea. I love me some dead bodies to play with.”

“You’re a sick man, Felix.”

Felix cackled again before he grabbed his scalpel and sliced the belly of the snake open from chin down to tail. As the snake splayed, a nasty stench of death escaped the wound.

“Goddamn!” Eddie exclaimed, covering his mouth and nose with his forearm.

“That’s some stink, huh?” Felix said in a calm voice, virtually unaffected by the smell. He seemed more fascinated with the mass of black spongy material that had spilled out of the snake’s belly.

“See this?” he asked Eddie, jabbing some of the black stuff inside the snake with his scalpel.

Eddie peeked at the snake over his forearm. “Yeah.”

“This shouldn’t be black. This should be pink guts, ruby-red blood; stuff like that.”

“You mean it should be like that if you cut open a living creature.”

“Exactly! A
living
creature. But this was no living creature even when it was ‘alive’.” He picked at the black truffle-like substance with his scalpel; it held firm, tough like rubber. “Yeah, this is standard when dissecting vamps. We always find this stuff all around the major organs. It’s what makes em so hard to kill. Bullet proof. Literally. But luckily, not sharp-pointy-object proof.”

Eddie stared at it in disgust. “What is it?”

“Fybosponge.”

“Fybo-
what
?”

“Fybosponge. It’s a by-product of venom. Starts off wispy, then hardens and toughens on full transmutation. If you’ve been jabbed enough times, you’ll have this stuff in you too.”

Eddie gulped. “Really?”

Felix nodded. “Uh-huh. It’s what makes a vamp a vamp. It’s what kills you, then brings you back from the dead as one of
them
. A kind of life support after death.”

“Nice.”

Felix met his stare. “Don’t worry, pal. We all got a bit of this lovely stuff inside us around here.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. How else do you think we all got here? Just walked in off the street?”

Eddie nodded. “Okay, so let me get this straight. Are you trying to tell me that these snakes are vampires? Vampire snakes?”

“Yep,” Felix retorted, his focus back on the snake’s innards. “Crazy, huh?”

“Just a little.”

“And they’re all over town biting people,” Felix added matter-of-factly.

Eddie recoiled. “
My God!
”

Felix went and grabbed a sharp knife. “I’m gonna take a sample of the venom ducts and see if it matches any of the venom profiles we got on file here,” he said as he cut off the head in one firm chop as if dissecting a chicken for the barbeque.

“Yeah, you do that,” Eddie said with a sure nod. “I’ll tell Vincent what we
think
we’ve found here.”

“Good job. Now, there’s one final test to perform,” Felix then said, plopping the snake head back inside the trash bag.

“What’s that?” asked Eddie.

Without saying a word, Felix went and snatched up the headless snake and stepped backward toward the door, ushering Eddie to follow him. He turned and darted out into the corridor. Eddie followed up, intrigue now rising inside him. By the time he left the room, Felix was already down the corridor.

“Hey, wait up!” Eddie called, jogging along after him. He found Felix standing by the fire escape. On reaching him, Felix popped the door open. A flood of daylight filled the corridor. Felix glanced at Eddie, then flung the snake onto the concrete outside. The snake erupted into flames. Eddie flinched. An astringent stench of cooked, rotten flesh filled the air. The snake’s skin blistered and popped under the pressure of the midday sun, small wisps of smoke rising into the air and evaporating. Soon, there were just hundreds of tiny bones left that melted and disintegrated like candles over an open fire
.

Felix turned back to Eddie, a big grin on his neat-shaven face. “Experiment complete,” he declared rubbing his hands together. “Conclusion: it’s vamp.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A
rooster’s intense wake-up call split the morning air in half.

Dom’s eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright. For a second or two, he had no idea where he was. He looked around him in a stupor; his eyes fell on Trixie, who was stirring.

He laid eyes on the fan blowing cold air over them both and his memory began to tick over. He wiped the sweat from his brow. He’d had that dream again. The one about the merc he killed. The sight of his dead body falling from that building wouldn’t stop plaguing him. Over and over.
Not my fault,
he told himself and rubbed his head.
Not my—

That rooster holler went off again and he started. Then he remembered they were in a farming village on the outskirts of Tijuana, and so a rooster at dawn was nothing out of the ordinary.

He yawned, got up gingerly from his bedding, and stepped over to the window. On pulling the curtain aside, the blazing sun stung his retinas. He squinted his eyes against the intense glare before rolling them down to spot the culprit in question as he ambled by, chest puffed out, head bobbing.

“Haven’t you got any hens that need seeing to?” Dom asked him.

The rooster’s response was to spin its tiny head his way then release another ear-piercing cock-a-doodle-doo.

“How about cock-a-doodle-
don’t
?” Dom mumbled under his breath and threw the curtain back closed. He turned away from the window.

“What time is it?” Trixie asked with a yawn, stretching her arms.

“Time to get up according to Foghorn Leghorn out there.”

“How did you sleep?”

“Like a log. You?”

“Not bad. Could do with an extra blanket, floor’s a bit hard.”

“Good for your back.”

“Really now?”

“That’s what they say.” Dom went and pulled on his pants. “I wonder what they serve for breakfast around here,” he said, rubbing his belly. “I could go for some bacon, pancakes, and maple syrup.”

“I doubt that’s what they eat, Dom.”

“Well, I can always hope.” He threw on a tee, grabbed his toothbrush and then headed for the bathroom. On his way, he stopped and stared down at Trixie. “Hey, you getting up or are you gonna laze around in bed all day? We got a big one ahead of us.”

Trixie gave him a peeved look. “Actually, I
was
hoping for breakfast in bed,” she said with a smile.

“Ha, you’ll be lucky,” Dom said and left the room.

A
licia came by once they were dressed and ready.

Dom opened the door for her. “Hey, Alicia,” he said with a smile.

Alicia smiled back. “Hi, Dom. Sleep well?”

“Like babies,” Dom replied.

“Come and have something to eat.”

“We’ll be there in a minute,” Trixie said, placing a fresh magazine into her dart gun.