He gave his head a fraction of a shake. “It’s not pack business so it’s not my business.”
I sighed and stood up. Fine, then, I’d be on my own. What else was new? “Thanks for the beer,” I said.
“Anytime,” he said, grinning again. Then he was off to help the next customer, and I made my way over to Norah and Tanya.
I begged a stool off one of the other tables and pulled it up to where they were perched. They had margaritas. They were wearing pink and seafoam green halter tops with matching stripy skirts. I still had on my black tank top and jeans. Maybe I wasn’t a real girl. I don’t know why I kept bothering to pretend.
“So it looks like the bartender is totally into you,” Tanya said. “He’s totally still checking you out.”
“You mean Paul?” I said. “He’s just an old friend.”
“Well, it looks like he wants to be an old friend with benefits,” Norah said and laid her hand on my forearm.
I glanced over my shoulder. Paul was still watching me with a hungry look on his face. Therein lay the problem with getting involved with werewolves. I never quite knew whether they were planning on eating me, humping me or peeing on me. I’m not sure they knew half the time. Besides, Grandma Rosie always says that if you lay down with dogs, you’ll wake up with fleas. Just thinking about it made me want to scratch.
4
THE SUN DOESN’T SET IN SACRAMENTO IN JUNE UNTIL NINE o’clock. I chatted with Norah and Tanya and nursed my beer until eight forty-five. They’d already caught the attention of a couple of well-muscled young men. I didn’t need to watch any more of the mating dance between the four of them. It was just too depressing. Hardly anyone even noticed when I left. Your life has gotten pretty pathetic when you can still feel lonely surrounded by people.
Paul gave me a little wave from behind the bar as I left. “Watch your back,” he mouthed at me as I swung the door open.
Yeah, right. Like that was even possible.
I was back in the Buick, slouched low by the time the sun hit the horizon. It had been a long day, even for me, and my eyelids felt heavy. I blinked them open.
For the next half hour, I might as well have napped. It was toasty warm inside the Buick, and there was about as much action at the Bok Kai Temple as you’d expect on a Friday night. Those Taoists. They’re quite the partiers. Not.
I was beginning to wonder if I was wasting my time. It was quite likely I was, but to be honest, I didn’t know what else to do and I had to do something. Ninja dudes using tai chi had attacked me and taken my delivery. Taoist priests use tai chi. I couldn’t help feeling my best course of action was to watch the local Taoists to see if anything shook loose, especially when the local Taoists clearly had something to hide.
At ten fifteen, I was rewarded for my efforts, if you consider having your life suddenly become a whole lot more complicated to somehow be rewarding. At any rate, three black Lincoln Navigators with tinted windows pulled up to the temple and then around back to the loading area closer to the river. I desperately wanted to sneak out and see what they were doing, but just when I got up the nerve to get out of the Buick, the Navigators pulled back around and turned left to head for the interstate.
I turned on the Buick’s engine and followed.
I wasn’t terribly thrilled with where we were headed. We got off I-5 and turned toward Fruitridge Road. Anybody who lives in Sacto can tell you that nothing good happens at night on Fruitridge Road. It’s gang territory, and I’m not talking about any gang. I’m talking about the Norteños.
I routinely deal with some of the most evil, undead beings that walk our planet. Since I was three years old, dead people have stopped by to have chats with me. I’m not scared of much, but I’m scared of the Norteños. I dropped back a block or so behind the very shiny, highly conspicuous SUVs.
I was at least a block and a half back when the Navigators pulled up to a corner where a group of young men lounged in the balmy summer night. The Delta breeze had started to pick up, but it hadn’t truly cooled anything off yet. I pulled over and rolled down my window. One of the young men detached himself from the group and sauntered up to the lead SUV. He had on a white wife-beater and baggy jeans that rode low enough on his hips to display a solid two inches of boxer shorts. Curse you, Marky Mark, for starting one of the stupidest fashion trends of modern times. The cholo said something to the driver in the SUV. From where I was, I couldn’t make out the words. But you didn’t really need to be able to hear to know what he meant. It wasn’t a welcome.
Two Asian guys stepped out of the front of the lead Navigator, one from each side. They had on suits and ties. Their hair was short and neatly combed. They were not, however, office drones. I can appreciate what it means to be in fighting form, and no suit could disguise that these guys were in exactly that. Several more of the lounging young men on the corner stood up and approached the SUVs. Words were exchanged. Once again, I’m not sure exactly what was said. Body language alone told me it wasn’t friendly. More Asian guys got out of the front seats of the other two Navigators. More words were exchanged. Sweat began to bead on my upper lip, and it wasn’t just from the heat. Whatever was going to happen here wasn’t going to be pretty.
The Asian guys opened the rear doors of the SUVs. For a moment, I could have sworn I heard the sound of bells ringing. Then things started hopping out of the vans.
I’m not sure really how to describe them. They sure as hell weren’t people, although they clearly had been at one time. I mean, they were people shaped. They were no longer people colored, though, unless a sick greenish yellow was now the new beige and nobody had bothered to tell me.
They didn’t move like people either. They hopped. When I say they hopped out of the cars, I mean it literally. They held their arms stiffly in front of them. Even from a block and a half away, I could see they had long, talonlike fingernails extending out from their fingertips. Their hair was long and matted. Long yellow strips of paper were attached to their foreheads.
They advanced toward the young Latino men on the corner, who were now doubled over with laughter.
That didn’t last long.
The laughter pretty much stopped when the first of the creepy creatures grabbed one of the young men and bit into his neck like an escapee from a Weight Watchers meeting biting into a Krispy Kreme. Blood gushed from the wound, and the young man sank to his knees as the creature continued to rip strips of flesh from his chest with its teeth. That’s basically when all hell broke loose.
I saw the glint of moonlight on steel. The Norteños had pulled knives. I watched as one approached one of the hopping things and shoved his blade deep into its belly. The thing paused for a moment, grabbed the gangbanger’s arm and pulled it literally out of its socket. I fought back my gag reflex as the creature began to feast on the limb and the Norteño reeled away, shrieking. A gunshot went off. I don’t know who fired it or where it hit. I do know that the hopping things kept advancing. Not one of them even paused. Another Norteño fell as one of the creatures bit into him.
The creatures kept advancing, kept grabbing young men and, in some cases, literally pulling them apart like overcooked chicken and feasting on them. I fought the wave of nausea that threatened to sweep me away.
Through it all, I thought I heard bells ringing.
For a few seconds, I didn’t move. I don’t think I could move. It was too shocking, too difficult for my brain to process what I was seeing. Two of the things converged on one young man and pulled him apart like a wishbone. Tendons stretched between them until they snapped. The air was ripped by the young man’s screams. I had never seen anything like it, not even in my worst nightmares, and I’ve had some doozies.
It took me a few seconds more to come up with a plan. I’d passed a convenience store a few blocks back. Apparently, it was my day to appreciate 7-Elevens. There would be a pay phone. I’d call the cops. No way was I using my cell phone. No way did I want anyone to trace anything that had happened here tonight back to me. A nice anonymous pay phone would be just the ticket.
I whipped the Buick around as well as anyone can whip around a Buick, headed back to the 7-Eleven and made the call. I didn’t stay to see if they’d come. I didn’t wait to see what would happen if they did. I’d seen enough for one night. I didn’t want to see anything more.
I drove back up I-5 to Richards, careful not to exceed the socially acceptable five to seven miles over the speed limit. I didn’t need any more drama tonight. I’d had plenty. I was going to head home, make myself some hot chocolate, possibly with a healthy dose of Baileys in it and then crawl into my cozy bed and sleep, sleep, sleep. At least until a little before nine on Saturday morning, when I needed to be back at the dojo for another Little Dragons class.
Right now, the idea of being around all that fresh-faced innocence was helping me put one foot in front of the other. I did not luck out with parking and ended up two blocks away from the apartment. The walk was good for me, though. It gave me a few minutes to clear my head a bit. The Delta breeze had picked up more and the night had cooled. The air felt good against the hot skin of my face and made me a little less nauseous. What had those things been? I’d never seen anything like them. The ferocity of their attack made werewolves bringing down game look like kids playing ring-around-the-rosy—and, incidentally, that whole thing about ring-around-the-rosy being a rhyme about the plague? Total nonsense. Look it up.
I set my alarm for seven A.M. That would give me time for a shower and a leisurely cup of coffee—or as leisurely as a cup of coffee can be when you’re being nagged about it while you drink it—before I had to face my Saturday morning Little Dragons. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as that.
Every time I shut my eyes, the scene at the park replayed itself against the backdrop of my bloodred eyelids. All I could see were things that hopped, that looked like ridiculous characters from a B movie ripping apart young flesh and feasting on it. Young men screaming for mercy in Spanish. Others just screaming as blood gushed from ripped skin and places where limbs should still be attached. When I did finally fall asleep, I dreamt that I was sitting in the middle of the emergency room with battered, bleeding body parts surrounding me like piles of dirty laundry.
I opened my eyes from one dream to find none other than Alexander Bledsoe sitting in the corner of my room.
“How did you get in here?” I croaked. I knew I hadn’t invited him in. Who had?
He didn’t answer my question. “Stand up, Melina,” he said.
My body obeyed him even though my mind screamed for it to stay safe under the blankets. I stood in front of him wearing only the panties and tank top I’d had on when I’d fallen into bed, exhausted and stricken.
“Come closer,” he said. His voice was low and rough, setting off vibrations in me that I didn’t want to ignore.
I took a step closer, unsure whether I was responding to his command or the needs of my own body or some truly unholy combination of the two. He rose from the chair and stood next to me, moving through the dark room like a shadow. His fingers traced the skin just above the neckline of my tank top. I felt as though I couldn’t breathe. I felt like my skin was on fire and his icy fingers left trails of goose bumps behind them. He leaned down toward me, his lips cool and full only inches from mine, and a horrible screeching filled my ears.
My eyes flew open. I was alone in the room, still tucked safely beneath my blankets, morning light streaming in the windows and my alarm clock blaring from the bedside table.
No seductive vampire sat in the corner of my room. I sniffed the air. Not a sign of him.
I half crawled to the bathroom to take a very cold shower. I let the stinging drops beat against my skin as I tried to sort out which of the previous night’s occurrences had been real and which had been all in my head. Maybe those hopping things had been figments of my imagination like my late-night visit from Alex. I could only hope so.
I was toweling off, still feeling like shit on a shingle, when the banging started on the apartment door. I threw on some shorts and a T-shirt and ran to answer it.
“Who is it?” I said, trying to peer through the peephole and getting just a blurry image of something blond on the other side.
“Police,” the blond thing barked. “Open up.”
HAVE I MENTIONED HOW I AM SO NOT A FAN OF DEALING WITH the police? Don’t get me wrong. I am thrilled that they exist. I don’t entirely get the mindset of people whose instincts make them run toward the sound of gunfire rather than away, but I’m happy they’re around because I certainly don’t want to be running toward the flying bullets. I heal fast but not fast enough for that. Plus, I’m not a big fan of pain.
Still, I don’t want to have much to do with them. Cops like things to have labels, to be in neatly categorized little boxes. I exist in the margins. They seem to have a knee-jerk mistrust of me, so I try to make sure I don’t come to their attention. It’s occasionally tricky at the hospital where they’re in and out of the emergency room all the time, but mainly I do a good job of not drawing attention to myself. I blend.
So why was Blond Surfer Cop at my doorway at seven thirty A.M.? And he
was
Blond Surfer Cop. He totally looked like he’d competed in Mavericks, dropped his board, brushed off the sand, donned a police uniform and driven to Sacramento right from the beach. His hair was all sun streaked, and even through the sliver-sized view the security chain allowed, I could see it wasn’t one of those fakey highlight jobs.
