Born Into Love (21 page)

“You’ve got followers. Get them to carry the fuel.”

Mercedes backed away. Was she dying of altitude sickness?
She gripped her temples as a fresh pain sprang out of nowhere. Nauseated, she stumbled to the front desk.

After bribing the concierge with her remaining funds to mail her gifts home, she entered an empty room and fell into bed. She kicked off her sandals and closed her eyes, but nausea struck. “This is not good and Diego’s not even around to witness my last breath.”

* * *

Fuel
; Teodoro wanted it and Mercedes needed it. The altitude affected her on two levels—her ability to breathe and the saturation of her tissues with the poison. The small airport lay on the northern end of the plateau. Two maintenance men shared a pack of cigarettes. Diego strolled up to them. They turned, curious, but stayed seated, their weathered chairs resting against a wall of a Quonset hut. Fifty yards away the helicopter waited draped with an inadequate camouflage tarp; the only helicopter berthed on the tarmac. Light spilled onto the scene from the front of the building. Oil blackened the men’s uniforms and grease stained their fingers. Petrol and tobacco scented the air.

Diego
chatted with them. They were waiting for the fuel truck and had to eat supper away from their families. The delay upset the plans of many travelers, but drivers had to be cautious on the road into the city. Last year a minibus plunged over the side.

He
commiserated and accepted the warning then walked away. His transformation into a bat took seconds. Headlights on the black mountains pinpointed the bottleneck. He swooped past the line of truck drivers who waved flashlights and lifted kerosene lamps planning their next strategy.

In human form
he joined the exhausted team of desperate men, each more eager than the next to get the disabled truck’s rear wheel onto the road. Exhaust fumes and bad tempers added to the glut of tension.

A cable linked the troubled vehicle to the truck before it, but both engines strained. The drivers feared for the motors. Men knotted around the rear bumper of the truck and pushed hoping to create the desired momentum.
Diego elbowed the weakest man out of the way and suggested they try again. With both engines engaged and tires biting into the ground, spitting earth at them, he and the men shoved. The vehicle moved.

Too weary to cheer, the women and children who had waited on the side of the mountain scrambled to reclaim precious seats on the waiting vehicles.
Diego retreated. Someone patted his shoulder and climbed into the truck cabin. From a vantage point on a pass he made sure the rest of the road held no obstacles.

And then
he needed sustenance.

The llamas stared at the tree that hid
him. A farmer shouldering a pitchfork leaned against the side of his thatched house, ready to kill the animal that visited when they had been unsupervised. Diego arced away from such a vigilant audience.

Another herd dotted a field closer to the river.
He lulled the largest creature into a trance, but could not fill himself with one. Sated after four, he raced into the sky. The sights and smells lured him into memories. His first human, nocturnal rampages. He remembered them as sounds and cries dispersed by the wind.

On an empty street
he returned to himself. He could not stay much longer in this country filled with echoes.

He
found the museum the herbalist indicated. The one story adobe building reflected an approximation of the colonial style. Like its neighbors, the clay tile roof would shine red in the sun.

The battered door creaked open when
his hand touched the handle. What kind of museum had no lock? Someone had to be home for a lantern lit a window. Piles of dusty books covered the scarred wooden floor.

“
Buenas noches
.”

He
saw an elderly man. White hair rose like kapok puffs around his head. A pale and whittled beard clung to his chin like the snowdrifts that grip the Andean peaks. His tanned face carried age.

“My son, we are closed.”

Was he a holy man that he would give him such a greeting? Diego looked at his eyes, curtained with partial cataracts.

The man
cocked his head. “I sense you are troubled. But not for yourself.”

“Will I have any secrets left when I leave your home?”

His bent body shook with laughter as he lit several small lamps. Under their glow the museum assumed the ambiance of a sacred space and Diego confessed. “The woman I love has been poisoned.”

“Who are you?”

“An outcast. I am someone unworthy of your knowledge.”

His wrinkled face made room for a smile. “I renounced judging people a lifetime ago. I like myself better now.”

“Who are you?” Diego asked.

“Enrique. I am an archivist. I record life.”

“How?” He opened a leather volume filled with dried flowers and vines or roots. The pages appeared more like cotton fabric than paper.

The man
was a botanist. He had come to the right place. “You catalogue plant life.”

“The world offers so many beautiful blossoms.”

Diego smiled thinking of the fruits and wines he used to enjoy.

“You are my second visitor tonight. You must join me in wine. The other came bearing the gift.”

“I cannot.”

For a long time his cottony eyes fixed on
Diego’s face. “Forgive me. Now I sense your urgency. What do you know of the poison given to your woman?”

“My enemy served the powder in wine. The source suggested a connection between life and death.”

“A riddle?”

“I am not sure.”

“Perhaps the source holds two secrets. What keeps your woman alive?” He lowered himself onto a stool while Diego explained about the seeds.

“I need time to search my volumes.”

“Time is something I do not have.” The light changed in the street, slowly creeping closer to dawn. “Perhaps I can assist you.”

“No, my son. My friends
,” he indicated the volumes “require a special touch.” He rose stiffly and walked a few steps into another room also dimly lit, coughing every now and then. He waved at stacks of fragile bound books that hugged a stone wall. “My plants would be strangers to you.” He closed the door or would have except the warped jambs prevented it.

“Should I wait?” He nodded and
Diego felt the stirrings of hope.

Outside a shepherd escorted protesting llamas into the city.
Diego paced anxious for Enrique’s return.

A fresh scent mingled with the must of the aged tomes. Blood!
He bolted into the adjoining room severing the door from its hinges.

Diego
rushed to a shadowed hallway. The fragile man lay sprawled on the rough-hewn steps, blood oozing from a gash on his temple. Teodoro sat on a spindly chair shaking his oiled head.

“You’re too late.”

A coppery scent rose from the river of life that dampened the botanist’s hair. Diego’s fangs descended. He looked down at the sorcerer’s victim. Hunger sent his body into spasm.

Teodoro dipped his fingers into Enrique’s blood. He slashed at
Diego, smearing the nectar across his lips.

Diego
fell back crashing into a stack of volumes. Clouds of dust clotted the air. He used his sleeve to scrape temptation from his mouth.

Teodoro smiled. “The poor man tumbled to his death after drinking too much wine. Need I say it was full of potions?”

Diego threw Teodoro against the wall and pounced on his body. His fangs hovered over the sorcerer’s thin neck.

“Go ahead.” His eyes held a dare.

Diego forced himself, willed himself, to back off. Teodoro rose as quickly as Diego.

“So. It’s true. You will not take a human life. Not even mine.”

“I am still a beast. Kill Mercedes and whatever magic you plan will die even if you continue.”

“Perhaps.”

Teodoro walked into the alley. Diego searched the room for a clue; his gaze fell to Enrique’s closed hand that held a crumbled drawing but of what? He scanned for the source but he had knocked so many books onto the floor. And he could not be sure the scrap had been meant for him. Yet, in the back of his mind, he sensed it had been a clue. A breeze tracked along the floor and the fragments dispersed liked dried leaves in a New York autumn.

Chapter 13

Mercedes opened her eyes. Diego stood at the end of her bed. A splatter line of brownish drops stained his shirt. “Oh no! What have you done?”

“A good man died tonight.”

She swallowed a scream. “You killed someone?”

“I did not.”

Relief crept into her body, slowly, like an inkblot staining paper. Still she gripped the edge of the mattress to keep from running out of the room.

“He wanted to help me.”

“Who? How can anyone help a vampire?”

“He was a botanist.”

“I don’t get the connection.” Suddenly cold, she again reached for the woolen blanket at the bottom of the bed and pulled it up to her neck. “Plants? How could they help you?”

“He offered a chance for a cure.”

“Sounds impossible.”

“Let us just say his knowledge would have benefited us. I had reason to hope.”

Now she was too warm. Perspiration pricked her forehead and she threw off the blanket. “You didn’t tell the police about him, did you?” She grabbed a pillow and hugged it. “What about that poor man’s family? Can’t you feel sympathy for them?”

“I feel more than you know.”

She smashed a tear against her cheek. “If you suspected you could be cured, why did you wait until now to call upon this man? Why would last night or this morning bring the miracle?”

“I cannot explain.”

“You don’t have to. I know the answer. Until now, you liked being a vampire. Please, I can’t know any more about you. Every time I’m softening, I get slapped with another horror.” She jumped out of bed and changed from cotton pjs to long pants and a long-sleeved tee. When she pulled her hair into a band at the base of her neck, she realized Diego had been staring.

Mercedes fought a wave of dizziness. “You know who took his life.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you stop the killer?”

“I arrived too late.”

She snatched her jogger’s pack off a chair. “I hate the deaths that surround you. I’m getting out.”

He blocked her way. “Where can you go?”

“Outside.”

He stepped closer. Her skin tingled, but from what? Anger?
Mistrust? Vampire vibes? She lunged for the door. Diego grabbed her.

“Let me go!”

His hands slid away. Although he’d told her death had frozen him in time, she detected changes that in the low voltage bulbs made his face more narrowly drawn.

“Enrique was the curator of a museum. It felt holy; a sanctuary where the volumes held good spirits.”

Teodoro banged on the door. “Three minutes. Dress for the jungle.”

* * *

In early daylight the airport looked smaller, dirtier, and more inadequate. The helicopter, released from its plastic cover, revved its rotors. Fifty caliber guns secured the doors.

“It’s camoed,” Mercedes whispered.

“No insignias. Our captor negotiated with somebody to get it.”

Remy came out of his stupor and offered his rodent smile. “Is the big shot conquistador ready for the
selva
?”

“
It’s survival of the fittest, Remy. Where are you on the evolutionary scale?”

“Shut up,
muerto
.”

Two soldier types pushed
them onto metal seats and motioned to buckle in. The craft peeled away from the tarmac and the crates and boxes tucked inside netting slid and crushed against each other.

Air blasted through the open door dissipating the scent of oil and cordite.
They lurched against the straps. One of the armed men handed them ear protectors.

Wind increased the sensation of speed--a feeling
Diego knew, but Mercedes bent her head and squeezed her eyes shut.

The helicopter pitched between peaks following a tireless river.
His beloved glimpsed the neighboring slopes and almost reached for his hand. Instead she held onto the frame of her seat.

The pilot increased altitude.
They jerked away from the lush valley. The varied greens of emergent trees broke through a topping of clouds. Spirals of mist rose from the jungle as the sun pulled moisture from the earth. Beautiful, but only the foolhardy would mistake the selva for an easy paradise.