THE RIDE WAS NOT VERY informative and altogether awkward for the captive individuals. Ketel Falls was nearly an hour’s ride from Abba at fast cruise. Huge, leafy trees gave way to conifers that grew thick and strong in the fertile ground. Sunlight fell between their spiky thatches in jangled spackles.
Just to be mean Desiree and Fiona didn’t let the vampires polarize their windows at all.
Pointed silence was finally broken when the rover left the main markers and crossed the tree line, winding surely between spaced trunks that became more and more constrictive.
Elyse had the wheel. Her captors never asked where she was going, and she never once offered.
Fiona pulled her communicator out. Her weapon didn’t waver from the back of Elyse’s chair. “Ramses? Do we have eyes?”
“Nakir sees you.”
The angel flew a slow arc above them, blocking the sun with the wings of his glider.
“Not spotting any activity on the ground,” Ramses relayed.
“Be there soon.”
Desiree had spent the ride looking at the landscape and thinking about the life she and Smoove planned to lead. When he wasn’t feuding with Bigfoot he was the most attentive man she’d ever known. It was very beautiful out here, and when she put it to Elyse why Ketel Falls, Elyse corroborated: “It’s pretty.”
“And you can’t get to it easily,” added Brian.
“You can if you have the right transportation,” said Fiona, opening the sunroof and scanning the sky as Nakir made a second loop around.
“That hurts,” said Brian.
“A fake weakness you play to advantage,” said Fiona.
Neither vampire responded. Fiona closed the roof and settled back. “You made it seem like you and Brian were the last survivors of a major cataclysm,” she said. “‘In a world…’” she intoned.
“That’s a brilliant campaign,” Brian defended. “Warped reality.”
“I wrote the book on warped reality,” said Fiona. She shunted a microsecond and came back. “In one you’re my father.” He thought she was joking. “You pretty much leave me to fend for myself. A right bastard.” She was thankful the vampires were in the front seat. The multiverse always made her feel like a puzzle missing pieces. The longer the shunt, the longer the recovery.
Brian jammed himself into his seat and closed his eyes. Take over Atlantis, they said. Infiltrate then entertain, and before they know it, Brought It!, the Atlantean Salvo! Get Atlantis from within; by the time the Jetstreams care, it’ll be too late. Yadda freaking yadda!
A vampire was first and foremost a soldier, and thus fueled by STUPIDITY he and his wife had agreed to this journey. Turning Raffic into a vampire had been a bonus up until that bonus had pretty much knocked the living shit out of everyone they’d known. I just want to go home. Field some scripts, make some deals, die rich and well fucked. Get that angel to be my mistress. Not like Elyse would mind; she’s doing half the junior marketing department. Actually so am I. Would vampires be sexually compatible with angels though?
“Sit up,” said Elyse to him.
He glared at her. “I’m not going to sit up. We’ve been sitting ramrod straight the entire drive. You haven’t come up with any plan to spring into action.” He craned his neck a moment to speak to the ladies in the rear. “We’re not going to spring into action.” He glared at his wife again. Their current circumstance was neither her fault nor idea, but what’s the point of marriage if not to blame someone?
“There’s an entire infestation of you,” said Fiona.
“Come on now!” said Elyse, eyes hot in the rearview mirror. “You’re closer to being us than to them. Infestation?”
“You’re not wanted here,” said Desiree.
“Who’ve you asked?” said Elyse.
“Tou-fucking-ché,” said Brian, low enough to be considered under his breath while specifically loud enough to be heard by all.
“Tou-fucking-ché,” Elyse said. She narrowed her eyes on the camouflaged area ahead. If they were going to face Raffic or some other crazed heroic reject, be scared and pissless then. For now, be indignant.
The thing about now, though, was that it never lasted long.
They hovered through a man-made clearing, then a series of sensor points, then a cluster of camouflaged shacks.
The rover settled quietly and powered down. Raffic exited a shack to meet them. Desiree and Fiona got out of the rover. The vampires did not.
Desiree shook her head at the Buddha. He turned and went back inside.
Elyse and Brian exited.
Vampires ringed the thickest trees, wrists and knees tied securely around trunks. Each vampire’s head lolled. Each dribbled incomprehensible gibberish, releasing “market share” into the air with one breath and “rim the ass” with another, and all randomly punctuated by whoever felt the need to scream “Fuck it!”
“We really need a Geneva Convention!” said Elyse. She whirled on Desiree. “You’ve got them out in the sun!”
“Sunlight does not kill you.”
“But it hurts!”
“In much the same way as being bitten, I’m told.”
“Evil bastards,” Elyse muttered. Ramses exited the shack. She prudently shut up.
Elyse and Brian dutifully assumed the position of hands behind their backs for binding. Smoove swiftly did so.
“Properly introduced,” said Ramses Jetstream. He was tall and he wore glasses, something she hadn’t expected. And he practically poked one’s eyes out with the intensity of his own while he spoke, a soft, insistent poke, not hard, but definitely promising to increase if displeased. He turned away. “Let’s go inside.”
Raffic the Mad Buddha was inside.
Scared and pissless became both prudent and advisable.
“Who’s going to lead us to the rest of the encampments?” said Ramses. It was cool inside the shack and softly lit. The drives of the vampires’ computers had been stripped, their equipment trashed, and the fridge, which hadn’t held a canister of blood since they’d completely neglected to ration it after Raffic’s rampage, was now similarly emptied of every other supply they’d had.
Ramses took a seat and stared at them standing before him.
“Bernard Pryor,” Brian volunteered. “He can lead us. He’s got the best sense of direction. The one out there in the red shirt.”
“No red shirts. You think we don’t know about red shirts?” said Ramses.
“Look, we barely had any dealings with the others,” said Brian. “They’re scientists, man! We didn’t need them.”
“Have a seat,” said Ramses.
The two sat at a small round table.
Raffic flashed up, palmed the back of Brian’s head, and slammed it into the table.
Elyse howled, “Fuck no!”
Raffic returned to his seat, leaving the vampire bleeding and bleary eyed.
“Fuck your good cop, bad cop!” said Elyse.
This time Ramses did it. The gash on Brian’s forehead opened wider.
Ramses crossed his arms. “Now you have a new trope. Have you ever tested the theory that if you get hungry enough you’ll start feeding on each other?”
A feline mewling issued from Brian.
“Elyse?” said Ramses.
Elyse was in her own world. “Jetstreams don’t kill,” she mumbled.
“That’s not true.”
“He’ll take you,” she said. “He knows pass codes.”
“You don’t?”
“I forgot.”
“What do you know about Lolita Bebida?”
“Not even sure who the hell that is,” said Elyse. “What?”
“We’ll go,” Brian groaned. He tried opening his eyes but the skin of his lids hurt. The cut healed slower than usual. “We can leave now.” He determined not to cry.
“That’s excellent. Raffic, you good with that?”
The Buddha sniffed and stood, then walked past them without a word. Sunlight streamed in through the door he’d left open.
Ramses handed Brian a towel from the sink behind him. “That,” he said, referring to the unwilling vampire who’d just left the room, “was not the smartest thing you could have done.”
“We didn’t know he was insane!” said Elyse.
“Yeah, well, we all need hobbies.”