The Undead Kama Sutra (7 page)

T
he Bayliner cruised out
of the harbor. Carmen waved good-bye. She joined Thorne at the helm and cupped his butt. No doubt she’d be getting a nooner on the high seas before they arrived at Houghton Island.

I returned to the medical examiner’s office. My plan was simple. Catch Johnson privately, zonk him with hypnosis, and cull the secrets from his brain. But I didn’t know when Johnson would leave and I couldn’t stand around without attracting attention. I circled the building to check for the exits. There was one on the southern side and another in the back. If he used that one, he’d have to come around the building to leave the premises and I’d see him.

I stood in the grassy square outside the entrance. Three palm trees grew in the middle of the square. From the treetops I could view the medical examiner’s office and catch
Johnson on his way out. I checked if anyone was watching me—I saw no one—then put my fingers against the rough bark of the tallest tree and walked them upward, pulling my body along. I hid in the center of the dense fronds. If anyone asked, I was checking for tree mites.

I remained in the shadows under the fronds and kept watch. A seagull rode the afternoon breeze and hovered close to me, its beady eyes inquisitive.

Was this gull a friend of the crow and here to spy? I gave the gull the finger. It shifted its head to see if I offered some food, saw that I didn’t, then peeled away for the shore.

At a quarter to five, the day shift swarmed out and headed to the parking lot. No Johnson. He couldn’t have gone out another way without me seeing him.

The swing shift trickled in. The sky darkened and the lamps in the parking lot flicked on.

A little after ten, Johnson appeared. He had changed into a light-colored Hawaiian shirt and dark blue beach shorts. He carried a gym bag. His pompadour looked unusually shiny, as if he had shellacked it. He walked briskly across the square on the far side, about two hundred feet away.

I started to climb from the palm when a man and a woman wearing white lab coats came out of the office. They strolled beneath me to share smokes from a pack of Winstons. With these two below, I couldn’t get down. Though my frustration grew with every moment, I couldn’t do anything except fold my legs and remain tucked against the fronds.

Johnson made a beeline through the parking lot to a red
Mustang convertible with the top up. He fumbled with a set of keys, opened the car door, and tossed his bag into the backseat.

Damn, he was so close. I kneaded my fingers in irritation. Below me, the two smokers chatted like parakeets. If this had been a coconut tree, I would’ve beaned them.

Johnson climbed into his Mustang and cranked the engine. The convertible top retracted. Mötley Crüe belted from the speakers. He used the light from a lamppost to check himself in the rearview mirror and patted his pompadour into place. My throat tightened as I saw him preen. All I could do was watch him escape.

The smokers ground their cigarette butts into the mulch and walked back to the office building. About time. I floated down from my perch and started after Johnson.

The Mustang rumbled out of the lot toward the highway. He headed to Key West. I cut across the strips of sand and broken shells along the road, hoping to head him off.

Johnson didn’t waste time putting the pedal to his V-8 engine. The Mustang whipped into traffic.

I vaulted over a guardrail and sprinted on the highway shoulder. A delivery truck whooshed by. I jumped and clung to the rear doors, my fingers and feet holding firm with supernatural sticky force. I moved around the truck to the right side of the cab and stepped on the running board.

The driver, a chubby white guy with a mustache, sunglasses, and a ball cap, leaned against his door. He brought a plastic cup to his mouth. He munched ice and tapped his
fingers against the steering wheel in time to country music on the radio. I could’ve done jumping jacks and the driver wouldn’t have noticed me.

Six cars ahead, the Mustang continued in the left lane. I tracked Johnson’s aura, having memorized its outline and wave patterns so I wouldn’t lose him in the night traffic.

I opened the passenger door and got in. “Hey buddy, can I have a lift?”

The driver jerked upright. The truck swerved to the left. The cup rolled from his lap and ice cubes splattered on the floor.

With vampire swiftness, I lifted my sunglasses and plucked his from his brow. “Surprise.” His eyes opened wide, the pupils dilating. His mouth gaped.

Hypnosis should hold him for a minute perhaps. The truck slowed and swayed across the lane. Cars behind us honked. I grabbed the steering wheel and straightened the path of the truck.

I dragged the driver over the bench seat and took his place behind the wheel. I sped up to match the traffic flow.

The driver remained slumped where I’d shoved him against the passenger door. His hands twitched and he blinked. Normally I’d use fangs to keep him unconscious but I couldn’t bite and drive.

So I slugged him across the jaw. “Sorry pal, but I’m on a mission to save the Earth women.”

His eyes rolled back into their sockets and I expected to see them display
TILT
!, like a pinball machine.

I coaxed the truck across the lanes until I was behind Johnson. He kept reading his mirrors, though he seemed clueless that I tailed him in this big white truck, as conspicuous as a beluga whale on roller skates.

Once at Key West, he continued south on Truman Avenue and parked beside a strip joint called Bottoms Up. I pulled over.

Johnson hustled out of his Mustang. Bumps like welts formed along his aura, signaling anxiety. He turned against the car like he was going to pee. Johnson lifted his shirt and checked an automatic he had tucked inside the waist of his shorts. His aura calmed.

Off-duty cops carried guns. Did Johnson check his pistol because he thought he might need it? Against whom? Was he undercover?

Johnson made a brief call on his cell phone. He climbed the short steps to the porch. A doorman greeted him. When the door opened, a roar spilled out, sounding like that rude, fun place between a drunken riot and bedlam. Johnson disappeared inside.

The street was too busy for me to abandon the truck there. I turned the corner and parked in a loading zone. I left the driver snoring behind the steering wheel, his chin hooked over the rim. He’d been such a good sport about this—the hijacking and the punch to the face—that I tucked a hundred-dollar bill under his cap.

I turned the corner when Johnson appeared in a side exit of the Bottoms Up. His aura roiled with excitement. Why the
side exit and not the front? He held a cell phone against his cheek and talked with great animation.

I halted and retreated behind the cover of a myrtle bush. He was two hundred feet away and too far for me to pick up what he was saying.

Johnson hesitated outside the threshold of the door. He looked down the street as if checking to see whether someone followed him.

Johnson put his phone away and proceeded at a brisk pace, going west on Windsor Lane. I gave him a minute’s head start. With my contacts out, I would have no problem tailing him.

He cut left and right through the neighborhood, stopping occasionally to pretend he was making a phone call, as he scanned back over where he’d been. I was able to hang back a block and track him by glimpsing his aura. When he halted, I stayed behind the cover of garden shrubs lining the sidewalk. Because of the shimmer of his aura, I could tell he was only being careful, though I wondered why he seemed to be taking these precautions against being followed. Why had he left his Mustang at the Bottoms Up and where was he going?

Had he spotted a tail, meaning me, his aura would’ve flared in alarm. Instead it remained at an even, nervous burn.

Johnson continued in a westerly direction. When he reached Caroline Street, he stopped and glanced around.

He walked the last block to the marina and got on the dock. He unfastened the lines of a twenty-foot cruiser and got aboard. I kept in the shadows and darted across the marina. A
bank of lampposts lit the dock and I couldn’t get closer without being spotted.

Johnson nudged the throttle and drifted from the dock. He turned the running lights on.

The harbor was full of boats and I needed something before Johnson motored out of view. Closest to me was a rust bucket of a powerboat. It was an older hull, the cracked vinyl seats mended with duct tape and the windshield missing one panel. Empty cans and the ragged pieces of a Styrofoam cooler littered the floor.

I checked the tank—it was full—and lowered the outboard Evinrude into the water. The lock on the throttle lever was no problem to break. I reached under the instrument panel, hot-wired the ignition, and fired up the engine.

Johnson cruised past the buoys and out of the harbor. I kept my distance, at least a quarter mile back. He sailed around Wisteria Island and then southwest into the open sea. His running lights blinked off. Against the darkness, his aura was as obvious as a red signal flare. A half-hour later, he turned east, toward a cluster of small islands.

He slowed and beached his boat on the sandy shore of the center island, about three hundred meters wide, with a dense cover of vegetation. I idled my engine and drifted. The surf splashing on the beach masked the noise of the Evinrude.

Two men crept out of the brush, assault rifles at the ready. Johnson greeted them. All their auras burned with worry and excitement. I tried to listen, but against the churning surf,
their voices were but murmurs. The three of them melted into the darkened interior of the island.

Now I had these armed men to consider. I motored forward quietly and anchored in a dark little inlet swaddled in mangroves. I stepped off the boat and into the peaty muck. A cloud of bugs settled around me. Swathes of mosquitoes landed on my arm, tickled my skin, and took off. Why didn’t they bite? Professional courtesy, I guess.

I lashed the bowline to a mangrove knee, climbed out of the inlet and onto sandy ground. The mosquitoes must’ve passed the word, because as I moved about, the bugs kept clear.

Johnson and the two other men moved noisily through the brush, fronds, and branches. I followed in the shadows.

They stopped in a clearing. One of the other men spoke into a handheld radio.
“Bueno. Estamos listos.”
He spoke with a Cuban accent.
“La noche es bien lindo.”

Of course the night was beautiful, that’s why they carried guns and sneaked around. This was code for what?

Was Johnson here undercover? I couldn’t believe it. The man was sleaze; I could almost smell it on him.

I stepped forward. A palm frond rustled against my leg. One of the men panned his gun in my direction. They hushed and studied the gloom.

I froze until they seemed satisfied no one else was out there. I needed a form better suited to sneaking through the darkness. Like a wolf.

I backtracked and found a clear spot of sand surrounded
by saw grass. I took off my clothes, stowed them under a stunted pine, and lay in the sand.

Summoning the transformation, I tensed my fingers, then my limbs. A searing pain racked my body. My bones twisted and re-formed. My spine elongated into a tail. Skin burned as fur pushed through. My jaws stretched and my teeth grew long.

For several moments I lay still, letting the agony subside as I gathered strength and oriented myself in this new flesh.

The air was rich with fresh smells. My hearing caught the tiniest of sounds. I rolled onto my belly and pushed up on my paws. I padded through the darkness. My feet avoided anything that could betray my presence. Leaves and branches brushed silently against my fur.

I circled downwind of the men. They reeked of insect repellent and greasy meat. The odor from their oily guns cautioned me to keep my distance.

The tallest of the strangers gave Johnson a satchel; he opened it and counted piles of the green paper humans hold more dear than life. Johnson looped the bag’s strap over his head. The three got up and headed to the south side of the island, where they stood on the beach. One of the men flashed a hand lamp toward the water. A tiny light answered.

A dark shape pushed a curl of water. The shape turned into a boat crowded with human auras. The men aboard called out to Johnson.

The boat crossed the surf and bellied into the sand. Men jumped off and formed a line from the boat to the trees.
Others lifted bundles that were handed down the line, to be piled among the trees.

I sniffed and caught the sharp smell of cocaine.

Slinking around them, I kept watch on my prey: Johnson. These men had many weapons, which meant I had to corner Johnson alone and unsuspecting.

A thumping echoed faintly in the sky, a noise still too small for humans to hear. I perked my ears. Motor sounds approached from the water. More humans were coming, though Johnson and his companions hadn’t yet noticed.

Weapons. Cocaine. The paper they valued so dearly. There was going to be trouble.

But how to get Johnson? If trouble started, he would be in the middle of it. I might never get at him.

The thumping grew loud. The men on the beach dropped their bundles and shouted in panic. Their auras raged like fire.

A beam shot upon them from overhead, a circle of bright light that held steady on the boat. The whirring wings of the flying machine reflected the light. The loud thumping made my guts tremble. More beams flashed over the water and the men scurried across the beach.

The light stung my eyes. I retreated into the shadow of the palmettos.

A lone figure, tall, his aura bright with desperation, sprinted up the beach. Johnson.

A beam of light snagged him.

Johnson raised his arm, pointed his gun into the beam, and fired.

W
eapons chattered and their
deadly stingers hissed through the air. In the glare of the spotlights from the water, men on the beach staggered and fell. Their boat exploded and threw a ball of fire into the night sky.

The heat splashed against my snout and I melted into the shadows.

Johnson ran across the sand toward me. Tufts of sand erupted around his feet.

No, Johnson was mine. My front paws clawed at the ground in anticipation.

When he was close to the brush, he screamed and fell to his knees, wounded by a bullet. Another beam ensnared him, the two shafts of light holding him like pincers.

I yelped in distress at losing my prey. Bounding from the
shadows and onto the edge of the beach, I lunged for Johnson and leaped into the brilliance surrounding him.

Our eyes met and his opened wide with terror. I wanted him to whimper and wet his pants in fright. I locked my jaws on the garment around his neck and dragged him into the brush, my vampire-wolf strength easily handling his weight. His human odor swirled through my nose, bringing the smell of warm blood, insect repellent, gasoline, and terror. Johnson grasped my foreleg and I shook him until he let go.

Wild and noisy shooting surrounded us. One of the lights sweeping over us went dark. The second light swung across the beach to follow the men dashing from the burning boat and toward the brush.

Hurriedly, I pulled Johnson deeper into the undergrowth. Branches and stiff reeds scraped against us. Letting go, I stepped away, not sure of what to do next. I needed him to answer my questions, and, as a wolf, I couldn’t hold a conversation in English. I doubted he would wait patiently while I transmutated back into a vampire.

Johnson brought his legs under him and kneeled. He clutched his side and grimaced with pain. In a pathetic human gesture, he clung to the bag of money strapped around his neck. He gazed at me and back to the beach, looking amazed that I had saved him. His aura blazed with frightened confusion and then with angry determination.

He brought his hand weapon up and fired at me. I sprang to one side. He lurched to his feet. I readied to pounce on him.

The flying machine roared over us. The thumping of its wings pounded my ears. A bright light stabbed through the trees and dazzled me. I leaped into the shadows. When I turned around, Johnson was gone.

The flying machine circled above, the wind from its whirling wings beating the treetops and scattering palm fronds. Its light hunted for prey. A swarm of bullets snapped at the brush.

I darted through a dark grove of tangled vines. I sniffed deeply, turning my snout from side to side. To my left, I found the meaty scent of Johnson’s blood.

Mindful of the flying machine, I kept low and padded out from the vines and through a thick patch of tall grass.

Up ahead. The red haze of a human aura. Johnson.

I sprang into a gallop. Johnson’s scent grew stronger.

As I bounded over a fallen log, I saw Johnson running to where he had left his boat. He clawed at branches whipping against his face. I circled to ambush him.

Johnson reached a clearing and slowed to a limp. He looked over one shoulder back in the direction of the shooting. The flying machine hovered over the fighting. Its beam of light sliced through the night.

I crept into a black hollow between two palmettos and waited.

Johnson emerged from the clearing and came straight at me. He limped, favoring his right leg. He held the money bag tight against his chest while a stain grew on the side of his torso. Moonlight glinted off his weapon.

I flexed my legs and bared my fangs. The muscles on the back of my neck tightened and the fur bristled.

Johnson stopped. He looked about, as if realizing that he was being watched.

Silently, I stepped forward, closing in for the attack.

Johnson’s shiny eyes searched the gloom. The two black orbs of his pupils locked upon me. He raised his weapon in my direction.

“What are you?” he whispered to himself. Adrenaline and desperation tainted his scent.

Being a wolf, I couldn’t answer.

Johnson winced, his expression distorted with confusion. He adjusted his grip on the bag.

I put one paw forward.

Johnson motioned with his weapon and I stayed still.

I stared at his neck.

Johnson’s aura shimmered with deliberation, as if he was wondering what to do about me. His aura flared, signaling an attack.

I jumped away. His bullets pumped at the brush and the blasts slapped my ears. I bounded around him, weaving back and forth to confuse him.

His weapon went silent. I lunged and jammed my paws against his chest. His arms beat my flanks. My teeth snapped at his throat, tearing flesh and tasting delicious blood.

Johnson fell. I tumbled over him. I set my jaws for the final bite. Something hard thumped against my skull and I staggered away, momentarily dazed.

Johnson crouched, keeping the weapon high over his shoulder to use as a club. Blood seeped from his neck.

I circled, looking for the chance to strike again. Like any wounded animal, Johnson was desperate and still dangerous, but so was I.

The flying machine returned, a noisy blur of wings and flashing lights. Its noise beat my ears and shook my insides. The beam of light speared Johnson. He bared his clenched teeth and looked like a cornered rat.

Holes appeared on his chest. Blood sprayed into the light. Johnson fell backward, his legs twisted beneath him. His aura burned with terror and pain, glistened vainly for an instant, then vanished.

My best lead in this case was dead.