CHAPTER ELEVEN
The werewolf pistolero advanced toward Hermosa and me. “Hands in the air, the both of you.”
I raised my hands and pivoted slowly toward the gunman. Had he showed up a minute later, I’d be standing with my pants down and my pecker in flagrante delicto. Hermosa fluffed her skirt so that it draped over her legs.
“I said freeze!” he barked.
“Please, allow a lady to retain her dignity.” She turned very deliberately to face him.
The train rocked beneath us and the werewolf shifted his weight to hold his revolver steady. Light from the vestibule door’s window highlighted a scarred brow and a twisted nose that looked like it had been visited by one fist too many. “Where’s Cicatriz?” he shouted.
“Why are you asking us?” I replied.
“Okay, wise ass. How about I shoot this bitch ’til you tell me what I want to hear.” He trained the muzzle of that Single Action Army on Hermosa. A sneer took over his scowl, and he pointed the gun at me. “Naw, I bet she knows. So I’ll shoot you instead. That way, after she talks, she can show her appreciation that I let her live. Isn’t that right, darling?”
Even with my vampire reflexes I couldn’t reach my pistol before this werewolf plugged me. My kundalini noir shrank inside me as if to make itself a smaller target.
He raised a bony hand and gave Hermosa a curt wave. “Step aside so I don’t get any blood on that pretty dress of yours.”
She was still pressed against me and I felt her grow tense. She was getting ready to try something. Pull a knife? Another poisoned needle? A pistol? I didn’t know, but whatever she had in mind, it had better be quick before this lupine asshole ventilated my ribcage.
He snarled and said, “Before you try anything stupid, I know why Wu Fei has sent you to find his daughter. And it’s not what you think. Too bad you’ll never get to Tucson, otherwise Matthew Randolph would tell you everything.”
“Who?”
“Matthew knows that Wu Fei has more tricks up his sleeve than the dev—”
The vestibule door burst open and smacked into the werewolf. The window shattered and sprayed glass against his face. Malachi sprang from where he’d been crouching behind the door. He hooked his left arm around the door to jam the barrel of his Schofield into the werewolf’s belly. The gunshot boomed through the air, and Malachi’s revolver spat a cloud of smoke.
Hermosa whisked a hand underneath her jacket and lunged for the werewolf, a pocket revolver at the ready. By the time I had my Colt Navy in hand, she had unloaded twice into the werewolf’s face, the two rounds flaring in the darkness and cracking like bullwhips. Malachi added another thunderclap of fire and smoke when he again stitched the werewolf’s guts with the Schofield. The bullet tore through the lycanthrope and pinged against the car behind us. Dense smoke fouled the vestibule before getting sucked away by the wind.
The werewolf toppled over the railing across the back of the vestibule. He tumbled against the coupling and bounced under the car behind us.
Malachi clamped a hand on his derby and leaned over the railing. He leaned back in. “Fell right under the wheels.” He shouted to be heard over the clatter of the train. “Whoever polices that mess better bring a rake and a basket.”
Though I breathed easier, I wished I’d gotten the chance to ask the werewolf what he meant by I know why Wu Fei has sent you to find his daughter. And it’s not what you think. Too bad you’ll never get to Tucson, otherwise Matthew Randolph would tell you everything. That confirmed my suspicions that Wu Fei had another agenda hidden behind this assignment. And it further bothered me that the werewolf and this Matthew Randolph knew why when I didn’t have a clue.
Malachi broke open his Schofield and two empty shells ejected from the cylinder. “Good thing I needed a cigar and saw what was happening. Otherwise, it might have been you getting rolled and sliced beneath the train.” He replenished the cylinder with cartridges from his gun belt and snapped the revolver closed. “Was it a stick up? What was he waiting for? Why the hell didn’t he just gun you down?”
“He asked about Cicatriz,” Hermosa replied. “But more importantly he said he knows why Wu Fei sent us here.”
I added, “He said that someone in Tucson by the name of Matthew Randolph also knows.”
Malachi’s eyes crinkled. “Never heard of him.”
I wanted to ask Malachi and Hermosa what they knew about the supernatural. But instead I said, “Apparently our traipsing after Ling Zhu Han is a ruse. Wu Fei is playing us.”
“Figures.” Malachi holstered his Schofield. “Which does not bode well.” In a sudden flurry of interest he studied the layout of the vestibule. “How the hell did that shootist get the drop on you anyway?”
Hermosa cleared her throat.
I answered, “We were a bit distracted.”
Malachi worked his mouth and sucked on his teeth. Then he flashed a grin at me. “By the way.” He held his hand up and curled his fingers.
I dug into my coat and returned his silver dollar.
“That was the ante,” he noted. “Pay what you owe me.”
I dug back into my coat and gave him another dollar. He touched the brim of his derby in a sarcastic salute.
“You guys had a bet?” Hermosa asked. “About what?”
Gloating, Malachi explained, “Told Felix we’d have trouble tonight, and I’d have to save his hide.”
“Next time,” Hermosa said, “I want a piece of that action.” She reloaded her little Remington and slid it back under her jacket, tapping the slight bulge to make sure the pistol remained snug.
“Another bet?” I prompted. “Double or nothing?”
Malachi tucked against the wall of the vestibule and pivoted from the wind to relight his cigar. He flung the match over the side. “Let me think about it. Cicatriz and our recently departed guest could’ve been acting alone. Or with someone else. We’ll see. Either way, they might be reconsidering their options on account they’re naught for two against us, and we left their last envoy cut into pieces like a salami.”
Hermosa screwed her hat back on and tucked stray strands of hair beneath its crown. She removed long pins from under her lapel and used them to secure the hat.
Two men stepped through the vestibule door, the white-whiskered conductor in a blue uniform, and he was followed by a muscular stump of a leathery faced half-breed wearing a buff-colored barn coat. The conductor’s jacket was hooked over a revolver tucked in his trousers. The other man’s coat was flipped over a pistol in a cross-draw holster on his left hip. In his right hand he carried a coach gun. He wore a badge: a star within a circle. The circle said Ferrocarril Nationale—Guardia Superior in embossed letters.
The conductor considered me, then Malachi, then Hermosa. “What was the shooting all about?”
“My apologies,” I replied. “We were celebrating some good news and got carried away.”
He stepped to the vestibule railing and peered over the tail end of the car. Nodding suspiciously, he swept a questioning gaze over us. His attention dropped to the floor and he bent down to scrape a fingertip across the wooden planking. He stood and held the finger to the light glowing through the vestibule door. His fingertip was stained red with blood. Brow furrowed, he looked back at us.
Malachi shrugged. Hermosa shrugged. I shrugged. The conductor pulled a handkerchief from a trouser pocket and wiped his finger.
The guard was studying the door and raked his boots through the broken glass. He cut us an accusing look, and Malachi pointed at me.
The guard said, “Cinco sols, por favor.”
Spearing Malachi with the most pointed glare I could manage, I fished my billfold from my coat. “Solamente tengo dólares.” I handed the guard a five-dollar note.
He shook his head. “Papel, no. Oro.”
I replaced the bill and dug into another pocket for a five-dollar gold coin. I held it out.
He snatched the coin and rubbed it with his thumb. He held the thumb to the light to see if any finish had rubbed off. Satisfied that the coin was legit, he dropped it into a trouser pocket. “Portense bien, sinvergüenzas.” With those words of caution, he returned the car, the conductor trailing after him.
Hermosa and I let Malachi finish his cigar and as a group, we returned to our compartment. Hermosa called it a night and continued to the women’s Pullman.
“I could also use some shut eye.” Malachi yawned. “Felix, you take first watch. That is, if you don’t mind.”
I wasn’t sleepy so I told him to go ahead and bed down. We snuffed the oil lamps. I could see well enough but my friend fumbled in the darkness. He stretched himself on one of the benches and covered his face with his derby. Within moments, he began snoring a chorus to the click-clack rhythm of the wheels.
I stared out the window at a star-crowded sky and a landscape black as the depths of an abyss. Distant lights floated in the darkness. Lone homesteads, campfires, I didn’t know. Illuminated squares cast by the train’s windows raced across dirt and brush. Occasionally, the eyes of animals—deer, coyote, raccoons, rabbits—flashed by, fleeting as specters.
I couldn’t help but think of this trip to Arizona as a metaphor for the way I was receding from my other life. Somehow I was certain that I’d return to 21st century Felix. But staring at the infinite gloom like I was now, I resigned myself to being stuck here for long while in the body of this other Felix.
I wondered if he was in my skin back in the Denver? If so, what was his reaction to that world and its different rules? Was he friends with Coyote? Jolie? Carmen? Imagining him with Carmen lashed me with jealousy. Even if he was me, he didn’t deserve her.
Would I ever meet my doppelganger? Suppose the supernatural switcheroo got out of sync and we ran into each other? Would we bond as twins? Or would I regard him as my rival and duel him to the death? Or would we acknowledge one another and move along with a shrug and a wave goodbye?
The train reached Santa Fe and rumbled to a halt. That time of night, people shambled across the station platform clumsy as sleepy ghosts. Malachi lifted his hat off his face, raised his head to look around, yawned, and went back to cutting Zs. I didn’t mind giving up my turn to sleep because the thoughts cranking in my head wouldn’t let me rest.
At a quarter after one in the morning, the train started again and within minutes we chugged south along the Rio Grande valley through Belen, then Socorro, and after a quick stop in Deming we were at last heading west to Tucson. The collections of adobe and pine-lumber shacks that we passed through seemed barely worthy of a name. I kept track of our progress by marking the time with my pocket watch.
The morning sun began its climb to claim the day, and it brought the blossom of a pink sky over the Black Hills. I stared out the window, fascinated that I could admire so casually the once-feared sunrise. Minute by minute, the landscape lightened from purple to blue to brown to shades of beige. Shrubs and cacti emerged from the retreating shadows. I was watching the world reborn and with it came the optimism and freshness of a new day, a feeling that I hadn’t known since I’d become a vampire.
Malachi sat up, blinking, and rubbed his grizzled face. He groped for his watch chain but I saved him the bother of checking the time.
“It’s six twenty.”
“Where are we?”
“Almost at Lordsburg.”
He coughed and with a stamp of his boots, he stood. “Hungry? Let’s get to the dining car.”
“Go on. I’m enjoying the sunrise.”
“Suit yourself. I’m famished, and I gotta see a man about a horse.” Malachi stumbled out of the compartment.
Roadrunners and jackrabbits darted alongside the train. Up close, the desert landscape was sand and dirt dotted with random creosote and mesquite. Solitary Joshua trees stood like neglected outcasts. But as the landscape scrolled toward the horizon, the vegetation blended into a sumptuous olive-green carpet.
The door slid open and Hermosa let herself in. She sat opposite me on Malachi’s bench, wearing the same outfit from last night and looking a bit haggard.
“Doesn’t look like you got much rest,” I noted.
“Finally, but only after I put laudanum in that horny tramp’s tea. Far be it from me to pass judgment on how another woman earns her keep in this world, but honestly, rutting goats have more discretion.”
Hermosa’s voice faded into a blur. I stared at her, wondering why her lips moved but she didn’t appear to say anything. Then I noticed I couldn’t hear the rattle of the wheels over the track.
A faint hum started in my head. My throat constricted. I tensed, acknowledging that the noise sounded too much like the terrifying hum of the deadly morning sun from the other world.
The hum grew louder, then it faded. I relaxed, wondering what was going on.
The hum returned, this time stronger, and it twisted a stab of hunger—blood lust—deep in my belly. My brow heated. I drew my nerves tight, in fear of losing control. The blood fever I felt two days ago was back but even stronger than before.
Again, the hum faded, and while my muscles eased, my kundalini noir remained taut as strung wire.
The hum returned, increasing in volume, stoking my appetite, only to fade again. The hum rose and dimmed in the cadence of measured breaths. Each interval ratcheted the blood lust up from my guts, up my throat, to my mouth until my tongue felt parched without the moist caress of human nectar. The red film from before returned to color my vision.
That hum exploded into the grating shriek of a fire alarm. My brain felt like it was boiling. My vision blurred to a red haze. The scent of human blood flooded my nose. Then my head cooled, the haze evaporated, and I was staring right at Hermosa. At her face. At her throat. At the spot where her carotid artery throbbed, waiting to be tapped.
For her part, Hermosa acted as if she had no clue about the maelstrom of confused and dangerous thoughts swirling inside my head,
My fangs extended and I kept my mouth clamped tight to keep them from showing. I couldn’t feed from Hermosa. In the other world, I could pump amnesia-causing enzymes into my victim, which would erase all memory of my feeding on them. But I didn’t know if I had that ability here. Plus, somehow I knew that drinking Hermosa’s blood would cause complications I didn’t want to deal with. So I wrestled against the compulsion to fang her, and the hunger ebbed. Then another scent of blood beckoned and teased me to the door.
I pushed upright to follow the smell. My mind swam, disconnected from my body yet still tethered to that new scent.
Hermosa started to rise. “Where are you going?”
I patted her shoulder to reassure her. “Stay here.” I staggered out the door and up the passageway between the compartments toward the front of the train. The awareness of other passengers floated on the edge of my peripheral vision. Step by awkward step I made my way to the front of the car. I exited onto the forward vestibule, only vaguely concerned with the wind batting my hat and clothes. All I heard was that hum keening through my ears.
I hopped to the next car and continued my journey, navigating toward the aroma of human blood, but it was sweet, as though braided with another ingredient. I made my way through a car crowded with third-class passengers packed on wooden benches, their arms and legs splayed protectively over luggage and crates. Mostly down-and-out sodbusters, Mexicans, blacks, American Indians.
At the forward end of the passageway a Chinese man in a silk tunic of an Oriental pattern, worn over canvas trousers tucked into boots, and a fedora on his head, watched as if he was expecting me. By this time I was drowning in that aroma of tainted blood. He stepped back, smiling, like he knew the answer to this riddle of the blood scent but wasn’t sharing. He twisted a doorknob and a narrow door on the left opened. The blood smell swirled out and I stumbled past him as if drunk on the fragrance.
Inside the windowless compartment, a woman lounged on silk pillows piled on a bench against the wall. She was a blonde with features so severe and sculpted it was as if her face had been whittled into shape—relaxed in green silk pajamas, her lanky legs crossed, black felt slippers on her feet. A teenage girl in pajamas relaxed on a quilt in front of her. She looked fifteen, maybe sixteen. Colorful pajamas clung to the soft curves of her ripe, young body. Neither acted surprised by my arrival.
A string of paper lanterns swayed above, illuminating the compartment with a warm, muted light. The woman held in her slender fingers a long, elegant wooden pipe. A ribbon of smoke unraveled from the pipe’s bowl, and now I recognized one of the fragrances blending with the meaty notes of the blood.
Opium and something else. Something light. Delicate. Floral.
Her icy blue eyes held mine as she brought the pipe to her lacquered, crimson lips. She drew a languid breath. The ember in the bowl flared bright orange and the hum returned to squeeze my brain and feed the blood lust. She exhaled smoke and the hum faded. Faded until I could again hear the steady click-clack of the train wheels.
“Welcome, Felix,” the woman purred. “I figured you could use breakfast.”
Questions about her and the strange floral aroma cascaded through my brain, but they were smothered by my appetite and the promise of satisfaction.
She sucked leisurely on the opium pipe and as the ember glowed and dimmed in the bowl, the hum returned and then slackened. Smoke drifted from her nostrils and her eyes hooded in euphoric gratification. “Eat,” she said. “Only the best for you.”
The girl on the quilt sat straight, pulled a ribbon from her hair and with a toss of her pretty head, let her black tresses drape to her shoulders. Her large hazel eyes smoldered with the guarantee of forbidden pleasure. She raised her arms, bent her hands backwards, and presented her wrists. “For you, Mr. Vampire.”