CHAPTER 35

Cavagnolo and I stepped from behind the trees and back to the clearing. Flies swarmed around us, perhaps hoping we’d also drop dead and add to the feast.

“What are you going to do about the bodies?” I asked.

“Leave ’em,” Cavagnolo answered. “Let them rot. I didn’t kill them, so when the cops come asking, I’ll tell them the truth. I don’t know nothing.”

“So that’s it?”

“Whaddaya expect? I move them and get caught, then the cops will assume I had something to do with this.”

Made sense. I said to Phaedra, “Better go with your uncle.”

“What about you?”

“I have things I need to get done.”

Vinny held open the rear door in the pickup cab. Cavagnolo nudged Phaedra’s arm. She pulled away. Her gaze swept over the corpses and back to me.

There was no horror in her eyes, only a strange disappointment. She stood between an old world and a new reality. What she had dreamed for-a new life reincarnated as an immortal-was possible. I had been her guide for a brief excursion into the world of the supernatural.

Her stare sharpened. My kundalini noir cringed as I sensed an echo. But she didn’t do it. Instead she turned her back to me and climbed into the pickup.

No good-byes from either of us. There was no reason that I should see her again.

They drove off and left me with a cloud of flies beating around my head.

What would the Araneum tell me to do about Phaedra? For now my priority was the zombies.

I started my 4Runner and drove to a paved road. I stopped beside a gravel quarry and got my map. I noted the places where the zombies had been.

Gino’s place. He had been carried from his house toward Pinos Creek. Why not carry him to the road and escape in a vehicle as they had done with Cleto? Why take the creek?

What about this ambush? Was it planned or did the zombies run across Cleto and the others? The zombies had taken him away in a vehicle. Where to?

Next, the ambush on me. That attack happened to the north of here by four miles. I couldn’t figure why the zombies were out there.

The attack on Gino occurred at night. The other two during the day.

I thought again about the attack on Gino. The zombies had headed east on foot. They had crossed the ridgeline connecting Horseshoe and Poison Mountains, farther to the south.

Poison? Not a good name.

I marked a line from Gino’s house through gaps in the hills. The line wiggled southeast toward San Diego Creek and across the draws and gullies.

I studied the map for clues. Where could the zombies have gone?

Horseshoe Mountain.

Varmint Gulch.

Ghoul Mountain.

Deadman’s Gulch.

Ghoul Mountain was next to Deadman’s Gulch. If those two places didn’t deserve a look, then I might as well give up and head back to Denver.

Something fluttered and landed on the roof of the 4Runner.

A pigeon?

I opened the door and peeked.

A crow stood, waiting. A filigreed message capsule gleamed on its right leg.

I scooped the crow and brought it inside the Toyota. Unless the Araneum was providing an exact address to the reanimator and his zombies, I had no use for their cryptic missives.

I unclipped the capsule and held it low near the floorboards, the darkest place in my 4Runner.

I opened the capsule and let it air out for a moment. I unfolded the swatch of vampire parchment.

It read:

My insides felt hollow. The brown dried-blood letters were bold, the slashing strokes conveying the grimness of the message. Nothing cryptic here.

The crow hopped onto the sill of the open window in my door.

I crumpled the message in my hand.

I wouldn’t, couldn’t kill Phaedra. The Araneum didn’t understand. She was a girl with big problems and had reached out to me, a vampire, for help. She had psychic powers; weren’t those important to the Araneum?

Despite the fact that Phaedra knew about vampires, I’d find a way to let her live.

I threw the wadded parchment past the crow. The wad hadn’t gone five feet through the sunlit air before turning into a knot of fire and smoke. Gray ash fluttered to the dirt.

The crow lifted one leg and gave a muted squawk to remind me about the capsule.

I screwed the cap back on. “You want it, go fetch.” I wound my arm and hurled the capsule into a stand of dense rabbitbrush.

The crow followed my hand and catapulted from the window. It aimed for the tumbling capsule and extended both claws. Midway through the capsule’s trajectory, the crow snagged it with a clink of claw on metal.

The crow gave its wings a mighty flap and soared over the brush and the quarry.

Bad form, Felix. The bird was only doing its job. You need to get on with yours.

What I needed was a nap. Fatigue wore me down, and a tired vampire makes mistakes. Those mistakes can mean no more vampire.

I didn’t have time to sleep or make mistakes. I had tonight to find the zombies before they picnicked on the rest of town. I headed to Morada and circled south along San Diego Creek.

According to the map, the road climbed and kinked past the local cemetery.

I couldn’t sneak around in the Toyota. The approach to Deadman’s Gulch was a seven-mile hike over open ground.

I left the 4Runner on the street outside a small apartment building, got my backpack, and followed the road on foot.

I removed my contacts. Dozens of red auras from small animals flitted around me.

The road crested where the cemetery sat on the edge of a plateau. From here, the view looked east across the breadth of the San Luis Valley. Strings of lights followed the perpendicular roads segmenting the flat valley floor. It looked spectacular in a sweeping panoramic sort of way, but I preferred watching moisture bead on the side of a chilled cocktail.

Farther south on the road, isolated houses sprang up on the left and right. A few cars passed on the road. With my contacts out, I could tell from the passengers’ auras they weren’t interested in me.

Green trash bins and aluminum mailboxes sat on the side of the road. Signs advertised ranches parceled into smaller lots. ACT NOW. FINANCING AVAILABLE.

Ghoul Mountain loomed before me like a gigantic tombstone. On the backside of the mountain, I would find Deadman’s Gulch.

Headlamps rocked through the dusty night as a vehicle approached. This far in the distance, they wouldn’t see me. I hiked away from the road and crouched behind a natural wall of big rocks. A Subaru station wagon rumbled along, slinging rocks against its chassis.

Now that I’d started my trek, I realized that I’d underestimated the time it would take to reach Deadman’s Gulch. I’d have to go cross-country as quickly and stealthily as possible.

Better that I go not in human form but as a wolf. I’d attract less attention if seen by humans. In the darkness they’d assume I was a big dog or coyote. Plus my senses were more acute and I could run faster.

I stripped and put my folded clothes and gun in the backpack, which I hid beneath a pile of rocks.

I cleared a spot on the ground and lay naked in the sand. I summoned the transmutation from human form to lupine. A warmth leached to the center of my chest. My kundalini noir coiled into a nervous ball of anticipation.

Shards of pain crackled along my bones as they stretched and twisted into shape. My skull felt as if a grappling hook had snagged the front of my jaws and winched them to a point. Needles pushed out where fur sprouted through naked skin.

Smells flooded my nose and separated into delicate aromas. Tiny sounds echoed in my ears.

I lay still for a moment to let the pain from the transmutation melt away. I turned onto my paws and stood on all four legs.