Divine Madness (24 page)

We were
supposed
to find this, and be outraged. Therefore, someone knew that we were here. Someone cruel and insane.

We had two candidates. But since there was no lake or stream nearby, I was betting on it being Saint Germain.

I glanced at the corner of the dining room I could see from where I stood pressed against the wall, making sure I was still alone. I was. And this time I noticed that there was a wooden ladder leaned against the wall, leading up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. The square was not sealed tightly and stray shafts of sunlight leaked into the room.

Ignore it,
I told myself.
Whatever’s up there, you don’t want to see. It might even be a trap. Just signal Ninon that the job is done and get out of here
.

Yet, a moment later I was climbing the stepladder up to the roof, arguing that I needed to know if the Jeep had been found and perhaps tampered with, or if there was anyone—or anything—between us and a safe getaway.

I ventured out slowly, looking for booby traps or sentries, or, I admit, ax-wielding maniacs. But nothing sinister was up there except a selection of dead cockroaches and a few cracks in the slanted adobe that needed immediate repair. The clay was burned in several places and I suspected that it had been hit with lightning.

The thought was further cause for anxiety, but I didn’t hurry away. The roof offered an excellent view of the town, and more than ever I wanted to be sure that Ninon and I wouldn’t be running into a trap when we tried to leave.

I could hear the faint strains of music coming from the left. Just music. No screams or gunshots, not even any more shouts for tequila. That was good. That probably meant the homicidal housekeeper was having a coffee break somewhere else before starting the ironing on the entrails, or whipping up cannibal smoothies.

I squatted down and crab-walked to the low wall that encircled the roof, being careful to avoid the cockroach carapaces. There were clay drainpipes around the edge at four foot intervals, large enough to stuff my hands in, but I would have to lie flat to see out of them, something I was reluctant to do. I listened some more, my breath held. Nothing moved, nothing disturbed the eerie silence. Not so much a bird called or a dog barked.

Zombie town, I thought again. I couldn’t smell them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there, hiding in the houses, waiting for dark.

Inch by inch, I raised my head until I could peer over the wall. What I saw was not reassuring. No one was near Ninon’s Jeep, but something very bad had happened here recently—and I didn’t think it was drug dealers looking for a little privacy and sending the townfolks for vacation in Puerto Vallarta. For one thing, people didn’t go off and leave their house and car doors standing open.

And there was that open gun locker, full of cash but only one weapon.

I looked south. Some the buildings near the town square had been decked with bunting for a fiesta or perhaps a parade, and it hadn’t yet begun to fade in the summer sun. That would happen very quickly, in only a day or so. Obviously, they couldn’t have been up that long. There was also a table of food—almost black with flies—and half-empty punch bowls laid out in the village square. Worse still, a few torches were still flickering. Whatever had happened, it had been recent. I didn’t see any bodies or blood, but the place was as dead as a graveyard. Whether the people had enjoyed their party or not, they had been driven away or killed before they had a chance to take the decorations down and finish their sangria.

If it were the latter and they were dead
, I thought,
God grant that our enemies’ destruction will give them consolation for their lost lives.

I rubbed a hand over my face. It was Hell at high noon,
a landscape worthy of Dante. I hadn’t prayed since childhood, but my subconscious recalled its teachings and began reciting the prayer for the dead.

I had another moment of dizziness. The heat was worse now than it had been all day, especially up there in the open with the baking cockroach carcasses. Summer was here and the lightning-damaged adobe was baking itself into powdered clay that fell from the walls softly like a swarm of dead moths. I watched the plaster fall off the building across the street, mesmerized, as it seemed to float on the air to the soft strains of wheezing flamenco guitars.

I think maybe the sun was baking my brain too. Something must account for my sudden stupor.

As I stared at the flaking plaster and thought about dead moths, Saint Germain walked into the square. A breeze, perhaps stirred up by his passing, made the bunting flutter. He paused at the feast table where he helped himself to whatever was in the punch bowls. I turned my head slowly and blinked twice and then twice again, unable to believe my eyes. I’d never seen him before, and yet I knew beyond any doubt that this was our enemy. I also finally caught of whiff of spoiled food and what could only be human blood.

He sat casually on the edge of the table. I watched his throat work as he swallowed the red sludge and had a sick feeling—part disgust but part envy, I have to admit—that he was drinking blood.

Saint Germain was drinking blood. From a punch bowl. All alone. Something wasn’t right. I mean, less right that even we expected. Ninon hadn’t said anything about him drinking blood. Could he be some kind of vampire after all? I shook my head again. This was Alice-through-the-Looking-Glass time.

I should have left then, don’t you think? Found Ninon and gotten the hell out of Dodge, even if I had to shoot the poker players to do it. But I didn’t. I just squatted
there, stunned as any deer in headlights and watched the man—if a man he was—drinking blood and swinging one foot gently as he killed some time before doing God only knew what.

I have no explanation for this paralysis. None. All I can say is that I simply hadn’t reckoned on being so damned fascinated and stunned by our enemy. Ninon had warned me, told me of his beauty and his ability to hypnotize and seduce—Hell, I knew he was dangerous because of my dream. Had he tried a front-on assault, or again tried to invade my thoughts, I would have been ready for him. I think. But nothing of what he did, how he looked or stood or moved, had anything to do with deliberate seduction. It wasn’t aimed at me; it just
was.
He wore his authority like he did his skin. The power of his stance, the arrogant tilt of the head, his radiance—these were with him all the time. And they were as beautiful as they were horrible.

I’m going to confess something difficult now, because it may be the only thing that will make you understand what he is. I have no homosexual leanings, no bisexual fantasies. But in that moment, a part of me longed for him. If not as my lover, then as my brother, my father, my teacher. I looked down from my perch on the roof and for a moment the desire to see his eyes overcame my intention—my need—to kill him. I forgot I had a shotgun. I forgot the heads in the dryer. I forgot Ninon was with a gang of potential rapists. I wanted so badly for him to look at me and smile that I nearly called out, nearly flung myself off that roof and ran toward him.

I thought: The wonder wasn’t that Ninon had been seduced into trusting him, but in that she had seen his evil before it was too late.

It was that thought of Ninon and her hat pin that saved me from revealing myself. That, and the attack by the ghoul—our old pal, the satyr.

For those who have never had experience with hand-to-hand combat or any kind of life-and-death confrontation
in a war zone, let me explain what happens. Reactions in battle can be divided into three phases. The first is recognition of danger. The second is formulation of a response. The third is to carry it through. All of this must happen faster than in daily life.

Many things can affect response time to danger; age, health, general alertness, training—vampirism. I was lucky that day to have had at least three of those things in my favor.

Had there been an eastern breeze, the smell would have warned me sooner. As it was, the only hint of peril I had was the fall of a speeding shadow over my right shoulder. My subconscious mind—which processes things faster than my conscious—knew that shadows moving so fast were unusual, probably unnatural, and likely dangerous. I recognized this straightaway. Moving out of the way seemed the correct response, and I did so with all the speed my vampirism-enhanced muscles could give me. I moved very quickly indeed—know this—but it still wasn’t fast enough. It was on me before I could raise my shotgun or even stand up to my full height. In less than a second, I was involved in a life-and-death struggle.

Most of you won’t know this, and thank whatever god you worship that this is so, but such fighting is very personal. You look into your enemy’s eyes, smell the breath—and in this case the rotting body. This isn’t pleasant, but it does make you focus. I had no trouble forgetting about Saint Germain’s beauty and giving my full attention to dealing with the satyr.

Many people would react with fear. I didn’t. Rage at the creature for having the affront to try to end my life made me ruthless and inventive. I found myself willing to commit acts of violence I had never before imagined, and made every attempt to carry the ideas through. Nothing worked. In fact, its first blow spun me about like a top.

I know why I wanted to be quiet during our duel—Saint Germain and the potential for the rest of some
ghoul pack joining us was a great incentive to silence—but I’m not sure why the satyr didn’t cry out. Maybe it was pride. Maybe it couldn’t. Perhaps when it was being stitched together, vocal chords hadn’t been deemed necessary. In any event, I was very lucky.

It was on me. I felt the wiry hair of its forearms as it wrapped them about my face. It had been going for the neck, hoping for a quick snap, or perhaps to tear my throat out, but I’d dropped my head in time. Long, filthy nails punctured my cheek though, and blood flowed into my mouth and down my face. It tried to turn my head, succeeding inch by inch.

I thought about the heads in the dryer and resisted.

My arms were pinned by something that felt like a steel bar, and they went numb almost at once. The shotgun slid from my fingers and my ribs began to scream that they were being crushed. I tried kicking back but it did no good; the satyr’s knees jointed the wrong way to cause a break. Knowing it was a risk to expose my throat, I threw my head back as hard as I could and felt the satisfying snap of the creature’s nose and cheekbones breaking. I did it again and think I smashed its teeth. Something punctured my scalp with what felt like roofing nails. A normal man would have screamed and curled up in a fetal ball. This creature’s arm didn’t loosen much, though, and it still held me too close for me to use my arms to defend myself.

But it did pause before going for my neck again. I think that I’d surprised it. Its previous prey hadn’t been as quick or as strong.

It hissed through broken teeth but still didn’t call out. It belatedly occurred to me that maybe like a zombie he didn’t actually feel pain. I could smack it with my head until my skull shattered and only I would feel it.

This was bad news.

I pushed backwards and tried again to move my arms—no go. I was pinned and my chest was being crushed. My
vision began to darken. Synapses began firing off warnings, telling me that I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I leaned my head back a fraction of an inch, opening my airway.

It worked. The monster tried again to pull my face around, but my neck was strong enough to resist. We breathed heavily as we struggled in place, our heads touching but sharing no thought or words, though I wanted—insanely—to ask it who it was and how it had been made, and why it wanted to live in that rotting body. Mostly I wanted to know if it believed it was Fate that had brought us here, to this place at this time, so that we would try to kill each other.

Weird, I know. But my brain was starving for oxygen. I was thinking lots of strange, alarming stuff. Like, across the street the failing adobe continued to fall in soft shushing flakes. They were no longer gentle moths, but rather a flock of ghostly ravens come to pick my bones. At the same time, I realized that I was thirsty and wanted to taste raspberry iced tea again almost as much as I wanted another breath of air. Mostly, I longed to wash the taste of those rotting fingers out of my mouth before I vomited.

I was also feeling fatigue. We had only been locked together for seconds—a minute at most—and yet so great was the effort I was exerting against the creature’s enormous strength that my arms, legs, and neck were nearly exhausted. This was no wrestling match. No referee would rescue me. There would be no respite until one of us was dead; and that would be me if I didn’t do something to break the stalemate.

As I said, it’s very personal.

We listened to the music for another moment. Or, I did. Who knows what the satyr thought as it stood there crushing the life out of me. I swayed in place, thinking that music wasn’t the soundtrack I would have chosen for a climactic fight scene and wondering what the hell I could do to get out of this mess. Then I felt the monster’s
muscles gather for another attack. It tried to kick my knees, to knock me to the floor where its greater weight would be an advantage, but the knees that had saved it before were a hindrance now. Its foot—hoof—struck my calf and I felt the skin split. That hurt, but the muscle was intact and I didn’t fall. I couldn’t. I knew that if I was pinned, I was dead.

Again we paused, our breath heaving. We were at an impasse, but that wasn’t good enough. I didn’t know how strong the thing was. It seemed likely that I would tire before it did. Then it would eat me alive.

Two other thoughts occurred to me:

The bad guys might actually win this one.

Ninon might die.

That was unacceptable, absolutely intolerable. My brain released another surge of chemical rage. I had to kill this thing, quickly and quietly. And, it finally occurred to me, before Saint Germain or his ghouls found me or Ninon and we were overwhelmed.

I twisted hard to the right, away from the hand buried in my cheek, feeling skin tear and more blood fall. I kicked out again, not trying for knees this time but rather the feet. Ever had your toes crushed? It’s painful. Splintered hooves would have to hurt too. It was fast, though, and he swung its right hoof out of harm’s way, so I continued to bring my knee up, going for the groin.