Rick was again sprawled in his chair, one arm draped over his middle, the other resting over the back of the chair nearest, a Coke can dangling in his fingers. He shrugged. “I got nothing to do. I’ll ride out that way with you and we can stop and get supper on the way back. Make a date of it.” His eyes sparkled. “I know me a good diner, serves the best oyster po’boys in the state. Fried up crackling crisp. It’s not too far from Westwego.”
I shouldn’t take him with me, not when there might be a house full of dead bodies at the end of the ride. But instead of telling him no, I said, “Sure. Sounds like fun.” And could have slapped myself. But pragmatism reared its head. If I did find dead bodies, I’d need to call the cops, and I’d need a good story. I could practice on Rick.
It was after five when we headed out of town, the sun still far above the horizon and glaring, the air hot and muggy, burning where it hit bare skin, making us sweat beneath the riding clothes. I would heal from road rash if I took a tumble, but rapid healing was not something I wanted to explain. So I wore jeans, boots, and leather jacket despite the heat. Rush hour traffic was snarled everywhere, but having bikes meant we could weave through stopped traffic. Not exactly legal, but no one had ever stopped me, and Rick didn’t seem like the kind to wait patiently on hot asphalt, breathing exhaust fumes. He followed when I motored between stopped vehicles on 90 and across the bridge.
The traffic opened out on the other side of the Mississippi and I gunned the motor, Rick at my side. The world looked different from the road, and it took me a while to orient myself, but I eventually found my way to the exit that led through secondary and tertiary roads, and lastly to the crushed-shell drive of the vamp graveyard.
The drive was blocked by two hinged metal arms on solid stanchions, the arms connected by a chain and secured with a good lock. I slowed to make the transit around the stanchion on the left and gave the bike enough gas to coast along the curving drive, pulling off my helmet and looking the place over. It looked different from nighttime and twenty feet up. I didn’t know what he was waiting for but Rick eventually followed me. I was walking between crypts, the sun broiling down on my bare head when he caught up, his Frye boots crunching shells as he jogged.
“You did see the No Trespassing signs, didn’t you?” he said.
“Yeah.” I spotted the Pellissier mausoleum and checked the locks on the barred door. They were top quality and still secure, which meant that Katie was safe, or as safe as an undead drowned in the mixed blood of a hundred vamps and buried in a casket in a vault can be. I swiveled, spotting the St. Martin crypt, and strode that way, peeling out of my leather jacket as I walked. Sweat was dribbling down my spine, under my arms, and pooling in my waistband as I circled the small building. The St. Martin crypt was made of white, dry-stacked marble blocks. Its door was centered on the front between elegant pillars; two windows were close together on the back, windows matching the pointed, arched style of the chapel’s. The crypt had been badly damaged. A section of marble was missing from a corner, broken, as if it had been attacked with a mallet; I knew better. Stone shards were scattered around from the rogue’s mass change.
Rick swore softly. “Damn kids.” When I glanced at him, he said, “Graveyard vandalism is rampant in this part of the state.” I didn’t bother to enlighten him.
The building was fourteen by twelve feet, with a stone statue on the peaked roof—a six-foot-tall winged soldier with a bronze sword and shield. Except for the weapons and wings folded to his sides, he was naked. And exceptionally well endowed. I shook my head, not smiling, but wanting to. A sculptor’s vision of St. Martin? Or St. Martin’s vision of an angel?
Rick caught up with me again. “You do know this place belongs to the vampires, don’t you?” He sounded half amused, half speculative, as if he wondered how I found this place and why I was here, but didn’t really want to ask.
“Yeah.” I checked the locks and the vault’s barred door. The locks were old and broken. The bars were freshly bent, with shiny metal showing along stress lines. “So?” I opened the barred gate door and pushed on the wooden one behind it. It opened with a soft groan.
“So, the gate had electronic sensors,” he said. “They’ll send someone to check on us.”
I looked inside. “Good. They can clean this up.”
“This” was the destruction of five of the six coffins. They had once rested in stacked stone biers, three high, and each individual bier had a small marble door at the foot end. The marble doors were busted and the coffins inside had been pulled out and slammed against the back wall, if the scars there were a clue. The casket contents were scattered everywhere. Contrary to pulp fiction, vamps don’t blow away in ashes when they die unless they’re burned, so the floor was littered with bones, scraps of ancient dress, boots, a few grinning skulls—one with black hair attached—some gold coins, glittering jewelry, and rotting casket stuffing.