We hiked up the slope to the morada.
“Seems quiet,” I said.
“I’ll bet Nguyen’s sleeping,” Jolie replied. “It’s about what he can handle.”
My skin tingled, not from picking up clues but from the lack of them. “We should hear something.” A conversation. The rustle of clothing.
The air smelled of pine, nothing unexpected.
Too bad I was out of ammo. A full magazine in the pistol would’ve comforted me.
My talons and fangs sprang out. I put my senses on hypersensitivity. Still nothing.
I levitated to hide my footfalls in the grass. Jolie followed my lead.
We halted outside the morada door. Nothing.
I reached to open the latch and the door swung free.
I looked in.
The sleeping bag remained inside the bench. Phaedra’s camping gear and belongings lay across the floor. Empty bags of blood were scattered like candy bar wrappers. Phaedra wouldn’t know about vampire housekeeping-leaving evidence like this of our feeding was bad practice-but Nguyen should’ve told her.
Where were he and Phaedra? Did they leave in a hurry?
Where to? How? His motorcycle was still close by.
I called Phaedra’s number. Her voice mail picked up and I left a message.
I felt a sinking despair. If Nguyen and Phaedra were in trouble, I had no idea where they were or how to help.
Sunrise approached. Jolie and I couldn’t do anything but hide.
Were Nguyen and Phaedra safe? I knew he would take care of her. Provided he could.
I shut the door of the morada and retreated to the darkest corner for protection against the sunrise.
Jolie scooped up the bags of blood in case there was any left. They all had neat punctures and had been sucked dry. “Phaedra must’ve found her appetite.”
Morning light trickled through the cracks in the door.
Jolie cursed. “I hate feeling so goddamn vulnerable. A one-legged midget could bust through that door and we’d be helpless because of the morning light.”
She curled next to me and we tucked close to each other under the sleeping bag.
At a quarter of eight, long after the sunrise, we got up and tidied the morada. I found the hawthorn stake discarded in the dirt of one corner. I couldn’t believe Nguyen had been so careless or that he’d been so rushed to leave that he had left the stake behind.
Carefully, so I wouldn’t touch the silver veins, I picked up the stake.
“Has it been used?” Jolie asked.
“I can’t tell.” Vampire blood would’ve turned to dust and become lost in the dirt smudging the wood and silver.
The leather pouch was inside the sleeping bag. I tucked the stake into the pouch and dropped it in my backpack.
“Seen the knife?”
“I’m still looking.” Jolie pointed to gold bits of macaroni and costume jewels around a smashed cigar box. “You know what this is about?”
“Phaedra’s way of saying good riddance to a lot of bad memories.”
Inside the sleeping bag I discovered bottles of Phaedra’s medications, full of pills and capsules. She wouldn’t need these anymore.
I asked, “Where’s the toiletry bag?”
“What for?”
“Phaedra stashed jewelry and money. Stuff that’s easy to pawn for quick cash.”
Jolie asked, “She’s been planning her getaway?”
“Seems that way.”
“And Nguyen went with her? Not a brownnoser like him. Doesn’t make sense.”
We went back down the mountain. I hoped to see Nguyen and Phaedra and give myself a laugh for all the grief I’d suffered for nothing.
But no Phaedra. No Nguyen.
His motorcycle remained where it had been. The panniers were unlocked and empty save for a few small parts and loose pennies. I’m sure he traveled with some belongings, bags of blood and makeup at least.
Boot prints had been tracked around the Buell. I recognized mine, Jolie’s, Phaedra’s, and a fourth set, which had to be Nguyen’s. So the two of them had come back to the motorcycle, retrieved his things, and then what?
Jolie went down the road.
I lost Phaedra’s and Nguyen’s prints in the rocks and hard dirt. I tried the scout trick of spiraling out from the motorcycle to pick up their trail. The only tracks I found were their prints going from the morada to the motorcycle.
Jolie returned. Her aura burned in anxious confusion. “Nothing. Either they grew wings or hiked out a different way.”
I tried Phaedra’s number again. Voice mail.
The paranoia felt like a cold rain. Wisps of fog snaked through the trees. The silence of the forest sucked hope from me.
Jolie zipped the front and the sleeves of her motorcycle jacket. “The cops are going to swarm all over town. We better get.” She stood next to her motorcycle and put on her helmet. “Besides, I’m sick of this place.”
“What about Nguyen’s motorcycle?” I asked.
“He’s the Araneum’s boy. They can take care of it.”
She mounted her BMW. I got into my Toyota and followed her down the road to the highway.
Back in Denver, we spent the next several days tracking Nguyen’s whereabouts. There wasn’t much to go on. His last address was in Sacramento, California, and none of the vampires in that nidus had recently heard from him. Phaedra was another snipe hunt.
Another week passed, and about ten one morning, I got an unexpected phone call.
Sal Cavagnolo asked, “You heard from Phaedra?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“I see.” He sounded disappointed. “I’m in town. Let’s meet and chat.”
“I don’t have much to say.”
“That’s all right,” he replied. “Maybe I want to talk and need somebody to listen. Do it as a favor to me.”
Cavagnolo’s voice reminded me too much of all the trouble I had in Morada. “Sorry, I’m all out of favors.”
“Remember, I bought you all those fucking guns. You owe me.”
True. “Okay. Where? When?”
We met at Gaetano’s. Mid-afternoon. I figured Cavagnolo chose the place out of nostalgia because back when, the bistro was Denver’s mob central.
I watched from across the street. Cavagnolo arrived alone. The last of the lunchtime clientele wandered out. No one’s aura betrayed any signs of trouble.
I let him wait for ten minutes, replaced my contacts, and went in.
Cavagnolo sat at a back table. He didn’t smile when he saw me, nor did he offer to shake my hand. Fine, I didn’t want to shake his, either.
After I sat, he turned a copy of the Pueblo Chieftain for me to read.
The headline for an article below the fold was: “Investigation into Gruesome Murder Site Continues.” Here in Denver, the story no longer ranked the front page.
The situation at Dr. Hennison’s played out like this: he was a disgraced physician who ran a meth lab and surrounded himself with a cult of drug peddlers. There was a turf war with other meth dealers and a confrontation erupted with disastrous consequences. The fire so consumed the remains that medical examiners had identified only sixteen people.
Thirty-two others remained missing, including some locals, and the passengers and driver of a Greyhound bus found abandoned outside of Morada. The police said most of the passengers had criminal records. Rumor was that they were part of the meth ring and had hijacked the bus.
County records showed the property was deeded to Dr. Hennison. DNA testing identified some of the partial remains as belonging to him.
“Unfortunately,” remarked the chief investigator, “the response by firefighters had so contaminated the crime scene that most of our conclusions may remain speculative.”
Complete destruction. Gruesome remains. A macabre mystery. For me, good news.