The sketch Phaedra held was a caricature, but the rendering captured mood in a way a camera never could. A round innocent face that had no business being close to war: hair drawn as wild zigzags that got lost in the confused crosshatched texture of the night sky; eyebrows arched in permanent horror; tiny lips twisted in sorrow.
Every scratchy mark directed me to her eyes.
Dark eyes. Frightened eyes. Accusing eyes.
Her eyes were smudges of charcoal, but they projected light from deep within the paper.
I wanted to slap the portfolio closed and push it away. But I was transfixed, both fascinated and frightened that the blackest of my memories was exposed.
Phaedra pulled out another sketch.
Soldiers huddled around the little girl where she lay dying on a poncho. Shadows radiated like spokes from each soldier as if the girl was a hub of blazing light. One soldier knelt by her side and leaned close with a bayonet.
Me. That soldier was me.
I had unsheathed the bayonet to cut away her blood-soaked dress.
Phaedra sorted through the sketches.
A pair of man’s hands.
Covered in blood.
My hands.
The emotions burst out of me.
Fear.
Terror.
Despair.
Phaedra held up the drawings like they were exhibits at a trial.
My kundalini noir shrank into a tiny ball.
Now I understood. Phaedra had crossed the astral plane to dig into my psyche. She’d uncovered my nightmares and endless shame. Phaedra’s psyche had woven into mine and that’s why I’d seen her face merge with the Iraqi girl’s.
My mind replayed the events of my vampiric life from the death of the Iraqi girl until now. My turning. My service as a vampire enforcer. The loss of Carmen to alien gangsters. The psychic attacks. Phaedra’s wish to cheat death.
Were these events randomly strung together or were they a path leading me to this moment?
And this decision?
Turn Phaedra.
I wouldn’t do it, but to refuse was to let Phaedra die.
I withdrew from the world, falling, rolling, tumbling-delirious in a miserable confusion.
A mental image of the little Iraqi girl came into focus.
Years ago, I’d been shot by vampire hunters and was close to dying. Wendy Teagarden, a supernatural dryad, gave me her blood and I was taken by a dream. In this dream I met the Iraqi girl and her family. They rose from the dead to confront me. In order for them to enter heaven, they had to let go of their hatred of me. The little Iraqi girl’s final words were “We forgive you.”
I returned from the dream, strong, complete, hungry.
Why wasn’t this memory depicted?
The delirium melted away. Clear-eyed and wary, I stared at Phaedra. “Why are you doing this?”
Her eyes were tiny yellow slits in the candlelight. “I’ve told you. So you can make me a vampire.”
“That will never happen.”
“It has to.” She jabbed at the drawings. Her fingernails gouged the paper. They left dark shiny smears.
Blood?
She waved her stained fingertips. I smelled the blood. Was this a trick? Had she cut herself on the sly?
The revulsion was too much and I recoiled from her.
Phaedra’s hand curled and her bloody index finger clawed at me. “And I selected you.”
“Where’s my say in this?”
She shook the drawings. “You know what it’s like to live with this pain. This humiliation.”
I swatted the drawings from her hand. They fluttered to the floor. “Don’t talk to me about humiliation. Not after you’ve been digging around in my head.”
“I had to do it.” She grasped my wrist. “So you can save me.”
I held her at arm’s length. “You used the Iraqi girl to manipulate me. I owe you nothing.”
Her eyes probed mine, her expression pleading. “Nothing?”
“Not after what you’ve done.”
That pleading expression turned injured. She let go of my hand and lowered her head.
The echo started, faintly. I got ready for a hard blast to my brain. But the echo never rose above a murmur and faded.
Was this the last of Phaedra’s psychic tricks? She kept her face down and appeared embarrassed, broken.
She knelt and quietly collected the drawings.
The realization that I had better memories of the Iraqi girl reassured me. The guilt was still there but softened by her forgiveness.
Phaedra had trouble with the zipper on the portfolio. I reached to help her but she brushed my arm aside with her shoulder. After she’d closed the portfolio, she sat with her back to me.
She gave tiny sobs and wiped her face.
I didn’t have a solution. Didn’t help that she had been dishonest with me from the start. Maybe another vampire would turn her. If he didn’t kill her.
I read my watch: 3:11 P.M. We’d been here a while.
The constant anxiety caught up with me. I was tired and wanted to rest. I stared longingly at the open bench. It would be a squeeze to get in but was almost like a crypt in a chapel. This wasn’t a polished mahogany casket with a padded silk lining but it had a rustic appeal. A nap now would be too callous, even for me, so I offered an olive branch.
“Don’t your relatives worry about you?”
“Fat chance. My aunt dreams of the day she sees my face on a flyer at the police station.”
“And Uncle Sal?”
Phaedra pulled the parka’s hood over her head. “Like he cares about anything but money.”
My eyelids were heavy. I wish I had turned down this assignment. Phaedra was more than I wanted to handle. Now that she had shut up, perhaps I could get some sleep.
Her cell phone chimed. She stood and dug into her jeans. In the glow of the tiny red screen, she squinted with annoyed recognition at the number flashing. She put the phone to her ear. A woman’s voice chattered like an angry squirrel.
“Yeah, Aunt Lorena, I’m okay. Yes, I’m sure. Calm down. Why do you ask?” Phaedra’s complexion faded. She repeated, “Oh my God.” She snapped the phone closed and dropped it into her parka. “We have to go.”
I blew the lamp candle out. “What’s happened?”
“Uncle Sal’s men were attacked.”
My kundalini noir tensed. “Where? Who?”
“By the river. Cleto is missing.”
“How?” I asked.
“Just like Gino.”
The zombies were back.