Chapter Two
“As of this moment,” Jolie shouted from the front room, “consider yourself behind enemy lines.”
Really? Then was I out of the loop. When I had gone to bed, my number one concern was that my liquor cabinet was getting a little bare. Now I was packing for a trip to save the world via a detour into outer space, and my office was within the blast radius of a brewing vampire civil war.
“If things have gotten this bad, why wasn’t I warned?”
“The Araneum tried but their messenger crows never got through.”
That gave me pause. A crow visited about once a week to bring a new assignment or to deliver a rebuke. Then again, the last time I saw Phaedra, she brandished a necklace of crow heads and dismissed the Araneum’s omnipotence. “Just how far behind enemy—”
Jolie snapped her fingers. “Chop, chop, Felix. Less talk, more getting the hell out of here.”
“When did you meet Coyote?”
“We haven’t met. He called me out of the blue to warn that a couple of rogue vampires were coming to off me. After I took care of them, Coyote called again and explained what was going on and to fetch you.” She snapped her fingers again. “Come on, Felix. Let’s go!”
I changed out of my pajamas. Put on cargo pants, a work shirt, hiking boots, leather jacket. Since I frequently crashed in my office, I kept extra clothes here. Searching through them, I stuffed a toiletry bag and cell phone charger into the backpack, plus bags of blood and a box of ammo. I tucked the Colt Magnum into a holster sewn inside my jacket. After locking up, I followed Jolie downstairs and out to the front sidewalk.
At the curb, a white Suzuki Hayabusa leaned against its kickstand, headlamp and air scoops pinched into an angry squint, the machine looking sleek and menacing, like a jet fighter minus the wings. The Hayabusa is the fastest production motorcycle in the world and even though this crotch rocket was standing still, I could see a tornado of speeding tickets swirling in its wake.
The bike had no panniers or touring bags attached, which begged the question: “Where’s your stuff?”
Jolie slapped a pocket on the butt cheek of her riding pants. “VISA card is all the luggage I need. Or I”—she made air quotes—“‘borrow’ when I need to.”
I gave the motorcycle another rueful look. “We take my Cadillac,” I said, “and I promise to make that car haul ass ’til we get to Fajada Butte or the engine seizes. In the meantime, we’ll have air conditioning. GPS. iTunes. Cup holders.”
Jolie pulled the helmet over her head, not paying any mind to my words. She snatched an open-face helmet with a bubble visor that had been hidden behind the windscreen, said, “Catch,” and tossed it.
I examined my helmet, the blemished orange metal-flake surface, the frayed webbing, the scratched visor. “How much did you pay for this at the thrift store? A whole dollar?”
“And you’re worth every penny.” She yanked the front of her helmet down, clicked it into place, and slid her sunglasses through the visor port. “Ready?” She cinched her gloves, threw a leg over the seat, tilted the Suzuki upright off its stand, and pressed the ignition button. The engine snarled and settled into a low growl.
My turn. Helmet on. Sunglasses on. My dark shades made her aura invisible.
The rear footrests were above the angled exhaust pipes. To mount the bike, I had to fold my legs until I practically squatted on the tiny pillion.
Jolie gave the throttle a slight twist and we rolled from the curb. She lifted her boots and tucked her legs against the engine. I leaned into her, my arms around her waist, my ass tilted upward. Very much the bitch position.
She cruised toward the highway, me spooning against her. Long ago, we spent time like this, only naked with nothing between us but post-sex funk and regrets for what we let happen to Carmen.
On the highway, Jolie accelerated to a clip that had us breezing through metro traffic. The drive to northwest New Mexico would take us through the town of Durango in southwest Colorado. No matter which way you go, it’s a confusion of highways. Direct routes were impossible because every road has to contend with an inconvenient feature of nature’s landscaping called the Rocky Mountains.
Jolie headed south from Denver, then off the interstate onto Highway 285. We were going fast but nowhere near the hundred fifty plus she had bragged about.
Her left thumb touched a switch by the clutch lever. Red and blue lights strobed along the front fairing. I lifted my head and panned to the rear of the bike and noticed similar lights.
Jolie gave me the elbow. Hard. Quit moving.
I shouted, “You think those lights will fool the cops?”
“Like I’m worried,” she shouted back.
True. Any cop who stopped us would get the zap hypnosis. He—or she—would be lucky if all we did was snack on their necks.
The cars in front of us eased to the right lane to make way. Jolie molded herself to the gas tank and I clutched her waist. She cranked the engine into a howl and the bike kicked forward. Traffic and terrain whooshed by in a smear of colors. Her ponytail hung out the back of her helmet and the slipstream made it slap my visor. A peek over her shoulder at the speedometer showed the needle arcing past one forty.
She didn’t slow for the corner. The bike leaned close to the road, our knees grazing a pube’s width distance from the asphalt blurring past.
The rear tire hitched when it began to slide. Using vampire-quick reflexes, Jolie expertly worked the throttle and wiggled her hips, snapping the tire firmly back on the road.
And so we zoomed through the mountains, a white blur with red and blue lights warning other drivers to keep clear. I thought about the trip to New Mexico. What was so special about Fajada Butte? How were Jolie and I getting Carmen back home? How had Coyote located Carmen? Was she okay? Who was holding her prisoner? Once we got her back to earth, how was she going to stop Phaedra? What the fuck was I thinking? Outer space? Back to Earth?
We stopped for gas in Gunnison, worked the cramps out of our legs and each sucked down a bag of blood. I said, “You mentioned that Phaedra put the hurt out on Araneum. How?”
“It happened pretty quickly. Like a coup.”
“How is that possible?”
“An inside job. Vampires turned against the Araneum.”
“Family joined Phaedra?”
Jolie swung a leg back over the Hayabusa. “Seems that way.”
“And all this time I’ve been doing my PI day job, clueless?”
“Maybe Phaedra saved you for last.” Jolie started the Suzuki and fastened her helmet. “As dessert.”
Minutes later, we were on Highway 550, clipping south through the San Juan National Forest, my mind back to sifting the questions. The Araneum was on the ropes? This explained why a messenger crow hasn’t visited me in … a couple of months. Usually, not hearing from the Araneum was a good thing. This time though, not hearing from the Araneum was a very bad thing.
A black dot appeared before us and streaked past.
Jolie decelerated to one-twenty, to eighty, fifty, coasted at thirty and raised her head.
The black streak returned and slowed. It was a crow fluttering towards us and dive-bombed in front of the bike, then wheeled away, cawing.
The crow was telling us something. Had the Araneum sent it?
My vampire sense—the braiding of my six senses and intuition—tingled the nape of my neck. I glanced left, right, then behind us. A dark blue Ford Mustang followed at speed and gained on us.
“We got company,” I yelled to Jolie.
Her helmet twitched toward the left rearview mirror. “Got ’em.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Let them try and catch us.” Jolie hunched back down over the gas tank and redlined the engine.
I pressed my chest against her back, the hard shape of the Colt revolver in my jacket reassuring.
The highway poked through a tunnel blasted in the rock, an ideal place for an ambush. We screamed through. Nothing happened. I caught a one-two beat of relief, then we slalomed around curves to enter a stretch named the Million Dollar Highway for its breathtaking mountainous views … at normal speed. At this velocity we didn’t concern ourselves about anything except for the road in front of us and the Mustang on our tail.
A quarter of a mile ahead, a pickup truck sat parked on the right shoulder. As we closed on it, someone stood on the bed, watching us, holding something at chest level. The device was square and shiny, the size of a shoebox.
A vibration rang my nerves, then tore up my spine and smashed into my skull, like a thousand brass cymbals crashing together.
White light exploded inside my head, blanking out my vision. The motorcycle slipped away. I became weightless, disoriented, floating through nothingness.