Haunted

No need for vampire here.

She whirls around. She can see what is going on inside the hangar. A giant snake has cornered a man and a woman. The snake hisses with a tongue like a split rope, turning every few seconds to strike at a soldier venturing too close. One is too slow. Snake catches his arm in his jaws, shakes him until the arm comes free, spraying blood. He deposits the arm in front of the cowering man like a cat offering a mouse to his owner. Bullets whiz through the air around it, but snake is impervious. The woman shrieks and covers her eyes.

Vampire knows there is someone else in danger. She looks around, senses alert for a familiar scent. She catches it above the intermingled smells of blood and body waste. There. Under the plane.

Instinctively vampire knows that he is who she must protect. He has his arm around a girl, pushing her behind him, shielding her body with his. He is firing his rifle, aiming at soldiers who pass too close or stoop to shoot at him. His face is serious, intent. The girl, whose hands are tied at her back, cowers close.

Vampire fights her way to him. She feels the sting of bullets in her arms, in one shoulder, but the soldiers feel more than pain when she’s on them and their blood flows in a molten stream into her eager mouth. One, two, three, four go down before her and then she’s under the plane.

The man smiles at her. “A

The human inside responds to the name A

The girl is smiling, too. Not afraid or preparing to flee. She holds out her hands. Vampire allows the human A

The girl touches vampire’s wounds. Her fingers are like a kiss.

The man is speaking. “Get Adelita out.”

Vampire gathers the girl, as light as her touch, into her arms. She listens to the rhythm of the gunfire, determines where it has slowed or stopped and leaps forward.

There is one corner where all the soldiers lie dead or still. It’s behind the giant snake and his captives. She makes for that corner.

Snake watches her come, but there is no challenge. Instead, he seems to bow his head at her in recognition. Vampire deposits the girl and leaves her in his care to go back to the man.

The sound of gunfire grows more sporadic. Most of it from the battle going on outside. But a group of soldiers are still firing at the figure under the plane. They are all around, knowing he is trapped, knowing he can only fire in one direction at a time. The plane reeks of spilled fuel as bullets pierce its metal skin. The stink curls vampire’s nose. The man under the plane motions for her.

“Get away,” he yells. “The plane may explode.”

But vampire makes for the two soldiers closest to her, tackles them to the ground, snaps their arms and throws their rifles out of reach.

The remaining three see what has happened. Turn their rifles on her. But bullets are no match for vampire speed. She attacks them before they can take aim. The first two, she kills efficiently—snapping necks that pop like dried wood. The third she takes her time, pi

His blood tastes the best of all.

In a minute his heart has stopped, his life force drained. Vampire rests her head against his chest.

Then her eyes drift to the man under the plane.

Blood. In a wide swath under him.

She doesn’t have time to resist the human’s pull. A

CHAPTER 58

“MAX!”

I scoot myself under the plane, ignoring the flashes of white-hot pain that shoot from my arms, my shoulder. I leave a crimson path as I crawl forward. I don’t worry about the blood. The blood could be mine, it could be my victims’.

But I do worry about the blood around Max.

I look for the source. I have to raise him up to find it—center back. My breath catches at the severity of the wound. He coughs and I lower him again, gently.

But at least he’s alive.

I cradle his head in my arms. His mouth is ringed with blood, dark, viscous. For once, the sight and smell of blood does not tempt vampire to reappear. I think she’s sleeping it off.

I listen to what’s going on around me. It’s quiet inside the hangar and only an occasional stray bullet whizzes outside. I won’t try to move Max until I know it’s safe. I’m debating whether to leave Max and look around when a familiar voice calls out, “A

Culebra.

“Here. Max is hurt.”

In a moment, Culebra, back in human form and dressed, is kneeling to look under the belly of the plane. “Can we move him?”

“I don’t know. He’s been shot in the back. It looks pretty bad.”

He scoots down to join me. After he’s examined the wound, he sits back on his haunches.

I respond to his grim expression, heart racing. “Don’t say it. Max is strong. His buddies are outside. They can call that helicopter, can’t they?”

“Let’s get him out from under here,” is Culebra’s curt reply.

We do our best to move Max as gently as we can. I keep expecting him to rouse and ask us what the fuck we’re doing.

But he doesn’t.

When he’s out in the open, I look around.

Bodies. Everywhere. Some I know I’m responsible for, others dead from gunfire or the fangs of a huge rattlesnake.

Adelita is still in the corner where I left her. Only now she holds a revolver on a trussed-up Pablo and a weeping Maria. They are tied back to back. And Adelita is smiling.

Until she looks our way and sees Max. “Dios mio. ¿Es él vivo?”

From beyond the hangar door, a voice interrupts. “Agent Avillas! Max? Buddy? Where are you?”

“In here,” I shout back. “He’s been hurt.”

Max still hasn’t made a sound except that cough and even now, his eyes remain closed, his face relaxed. Like he’s sleeping. It’s not a good sign.

I watch for the man who called out. He’s approaching with two armed men behind him, speaking into a radio on his collar. He looks Hispanic, dark ski

He kneels down beside Max. “Did he stop breathing?” is the first question he asks me.

It only takes a heartbeat to know the reason. The blood around Max’s mouth.

And around mine.

“No. But he’s lost a lot of blood. He needs to get to a hospital.”

The guy speaks into the radio. He uses the clipped, acronym-filled lingo of one agent to another. But when the answer comes back, it’s something I can understand.

They will have the helicopter here in thirty minutes.

I look at Max. He doesn’t look like Max anymore. He’s gone from pale to ashen. I can see through his eyelids. The pool of blood under him is too big, too thick. His breath is so shallow, it hardly flutters his chest.

I touch his cheek. I hope he has thirty minutes.

FOR THE FIRST TIME, CULEBRA, ADELITA AND I ARE ABLE to sit together without a gun or the threat of violence hanging over our heads. We sit close to Max so we can watch one of the agents, a medic, attend to him. The medic packs the wound to staunch the flow of blood, runs an IV to replenish liquids. He won’t give us a prognosis. And Max still hasn’t regained consciousness.