103
The lights on this section of Maury Avenue had seen better days. Now, well past midnight, more gangbangers than pedestrians prowled the streets of Oxon Hill. Southeast D.C. had a reputation, sometimes deserved, sometimes not. Here tonight, a block southeast of Southern Avenue, danger filled the air. It was this atmosphere that called El Chupacabra. Tomorrow he would be on a private jet back to Bogotá, but tonight was his.
He strolled down the dark street, occasionally detouring into alleyways, drinking in the fear that seeped from the windows of the houses, from the occasional passing car on the streets. Having grown up in the barrios of Lima, Peru, this felt a little like home, a bit more upscale, but death was out there, waiting to claim the unwary.
Since Eduardo had been old enough to remember, the fear demon had been a constant companion. His mother had been the first to introduce him. Now, in ways so profound that it recalled the spirits of the Incas, it had become his one true lover.
Several times he was tempted to walk right up to one of the groups of young black men in his three thousand dollar Armani suit and use a line from one of his favorite Jacky Chan movies, “Hey, my niggas!” just to see them go wild, to bathe in their blood as they flailed their guns at him. But their hate would not satisfy his hunger. What he wanted was fear.
A car turned into a driveway on the north side of the street, three houses down from the alley in which Eduardo stood watching, its engine coughing and sputtering in protest as it switched off. The door opened, silhouetting a long black woman against the cab lights, her clingy dress and spiked heel shoes making a statement about her profession. Not a hooker, whose work for the night would be far from over. More likely she was an exotic dancer at one of the clubs that nuzzled up against the nearby military bases.
The woman leaned back into the car, bending down to reach across the seat for her purse, a posture that heated Eduardo’s blood. She would serve his purpose nicely.
The woman slammed the car door, pressed the lock and alarm button on her key ring twice, the second time producing a short squawk from the car horn. Then she strode rapidly to the door, glancing around quickly before sliding her key into the lock, opening the door, and stepping inside. As the lights inside the entryway went on, Eduardo remained in place, watching the shadow of her movements in front of the windows.
The next light to come on was on the second floor, the position of the room marking it as a child’s bedroom across from the master. Just a quick on and off, mama checking in on the kiddies. Was there a mister stripper? Not likely. Neighborhoods like this were the reason for the sky-high American statistics on single mothers. No sign of a second car. Eduardo very much doubted he’d meet the man of the house. But if he did, so much the better.
Moving across the street, Eduardo slid into the shadows, moving right up against the houses as he made his way toward his target. The building was a two-story brick structure, divided into two bedroom units, each with its own driveway and yard, often separated by chain-link fences. Pausing only briefly to survey the front, he moved around the side of the building and into the tree-lined space, which gave the houses some separation from the busy Southern Avenue.
Looking at the large trees that spread their branches right up against the building, Eduardo smiled. How inviting. Climbing was one of his specialties, and a climb like this wouldn’t even wrinkle his suit.
The light in the kitchen sputtered and then blossomed in all its fluorescent brilliance, allowing him to glimpse the face of his target as she moved in front of the window to reach up into a cupboard to grab a plate. With a face like that and a body to go with it, the stripper had to be pulling down some good money.
The woman moved to the refrigerator, and Eduardo turned back to the tree, effortlessly moving up along its branches until he reached the master bedroom window. He pulled two small, oddly shaped tools from his pocket, cut away the screen, and then slipped one through the crack where the first of twin latches held the window in place, wiggling it back and forth until he could feel the latch lift.
Repeating the process with the second tool, he popped the other latch free and slid the window fully open, pausing just long enough to secure his equipment before slipping into the dark bedroom.
Eduardo, more at home in the partial darkness than he was in full daylight, surveyed the room. It wasn’t much. A queen-size bed, a single nightstand, a four-drawer dresser, a closet, an open door into a small bathroom and another leading out into the hall.
No hesitation. Eduardo moved silently out the door, ears attuned to the movements in the kitchen below, his footsteps taking him to the other doorway, the one leading into the second bedroom. He turned the knob, pushing the door open just a crack. Then, hearing no squeak of hinges, he opened it a full twelve inches, just far enough to allow him to slide through. A nightlight plugged into the near wall revealed a twin bed, its headboard decorated with Power Ranger cutouts, a pattern that was repeated on the blue-and-orange comforter that was tucked in tight around the sleeping little boy’s neck.
Good mama.
Reaching inside his jacket pocket, Eduardo removed a flat plastic pouch, pulling out a sheet with precut strips of duct tape, each pressed up against a special 3M film. It was a kit of his own design; the plastic film had a coating, which let the duct tape stick only slightly, allowing it to be soundlessly peeled free, adhesive preserved. In addition to the duct tape packets, the kit contained a number of the plastic cuff strips that had become a favorite among both the law enforcement and drug trafficking communities.
In movements so quick and efficient that he was done before the child had struggled back to wakefulness, Eduardo stuffed a roll of gauze into the boy’s mouth and slapped a strip of duct tape across it, cuffing hands and feet together behind the child’s back. Hoisting the squirming form over one shoulder, Eduardo stepped back out into the hallway, closed the door, and walked back to the mother’s room.
Without a pause, he set the boy on the bed, his back pressed against the headboard. A quick twist with another of the plastic cuffs secured the child’s throat to the bedpost tightly enough to produce tiny gagging sounds whenever the boy moved but not tight enough to choke him unconscious. The boy whimpered, tried to scream, but the sound was so muffled that Eduardo barely heard it himself, a small snuffling like a rat in a garbage can.
Removing his jacket, Eduardo moved to the closet, selected an empty hanger, and hung the jacket beside a knee-length black skirt. He placed his shoulder holster and stiletto atop the dresser, continuing to disrobe until he stood entirely naked, the remainder of his suit hanging neatly beside the jacket. Then, picking up the knife, he stepped into the darkened corner behind the open doorway, the handle of the Beretta clearly visible in the holster atop the dresser, six feet away from the wide-eyed boy bound to the headboard.
Eduardo felt his anticipation rise. Humans were the most interesting of animals. They lived for change, the bad moments making the good ones better by contrast. Even intensity could not be sustained, every high followed by a downer of equal intensity. But it was the moments of transition that formed the ultimate in human experience, and Eduardo had determined the three most exciting transitions in human experience.
The moment of sexual climax peaked at the transition from extreme sexual excitement to satisfaction. Next came fear which, when pushed to the limit, formed the starting point of the next transition, that moment when the last shred of hope was ripped away, sending the victim over the peak of terror into the depths of despair. It was a moment of change so intense that only one other surpassed it. The passage across the life-death threshold.
Many people who had survived the near-death experience reported experiencing a great white light and a sense of ecstasy at the moment of passage. While Eduardo did not know about that, he had closely observed the death of enough people that he knew one thing; it was the most thrilling of all transitions.
He had also discovered that the ultimate life experience could be attained through a combination of all three transitions in one climactic event. Perhaps, at some point, he would be lucky enough to experience his own death in just such a way. In the meantime, he had found the next best thing, an act that produced his sexual climax at the terror-despair, life-death transition of his victim.
But as easy as it was to induce the life-death crossover, the difficulty lay in reaching into another person’s soul to extract the thing that bent her mind with terror. It was also the only thing that brought Eduardo to sexual fulfillment. It was his special skill, the reason he had acquired his nickname.
Footsteps on the stairs brought his reverie to a halt, tensing his naked body in anticipation. The stiletto pirouetted between his fingers in a ritual as unconscious as his breathing. The good mother was coming.
The woman stepped into the room, her slender arm flipping on the light switch as she passed through the doorway. For just a second, shock froze her in place, and in that second Eduardo moved behind her, the razor edge of the knife pressed against the curve of her throat, his other hand locked in a handful of hair.
“Fight me and I’ll cut your boy’s eyes out while you watch.”
The tone of his voice hit her as hard as the words, melting any resistance before it had a chance to form.
“Bitch, you’d better make me believe you’re loving it or I’m going to reach over and start cutting on your kid.”
Without releasing his hold on her hair, Eduardo worked the blade, severing her clothes in cuts that touched but did not damage the perfect skin beneath them. Forcing her down on the bed, face up beside her son, Eduardo mounted her, thrusting inside her tight body with a fierceness that shone like ice in his black eyes.
Beneath him, the woman’s body moved with a passion born of fury, hatred, and a panic he increased by periodically moving his blade hand closer to the terrified child. Feeling her fear intensity peak, Eduardo swept his knife arm up and sideways, sending a fountain of blood spraying out across the bed from the new mouth that opened in the boy’s throat.
The mother’s eyes widened as despair filled her soul.
Transition.
The blade swept down, sending a new jet of blood pulsing upward, mother’s blood combining with that of her child.
Transition.
Eduardo shuddered as he climaxed, spending himself inside the dying woman’s beautiful black body.
Transition.
The intensity of the moment left him collapsed atop the corpse, so drained he was unable to move, the better part of two minutes passing before he found the energy to rise and make his way to the bathroom. Stepping into the shower, he scrubbed himself and his stiletto clean, pausing to dry his body and slick down his hair before moving back to the closet to don his suit.
After retrieving the shoulder holster and sliding into his jacket, Eduardo stopped in the doorway, turning back to survey the scene. So much blood, his DNA thoroughly mixed within it. The police would certainly isolate it.
As he turned and walked out of the room, Eduardo laughed out loud at the thought. Finally, the Americans would have real proof that El Chupacabra exists.
104
Mark held Heather’s arm as he walked her down the line of cars in the dark parking lot, her eyes as white and unseeing as the full moon in the night sky overhead. Suddenly, her eyes rolled back to normal.
“This one,” she said, pointing at the car to his right.
“You sure?” Mark asked.
“I’m sure. Just do it.”
Mark ran the coat hanger down between the driver’s side window seal and the glass, jerking back up with a quick stroke that popped the latch on the old Ford Pinto. Reaching under the steering column, he ripped away the plastic covering and pulled out the wires, found the pair he was looking for, and stripped the insulation to short them together and ignite the engine.
By the time Heather had moved to the passenger door, Mark had unlocked it and settled into the driver’s seat. Heather sat down beside him, slamming her door.
“She may be ugly, but at least she’s old,” Mark said with a grin that showed more bravado than he felt.
Heather managed a smile. “Let’s just go.”
Mark knew she didn’t like stealing a car any more than he did, but she had worked out the odds in her visions. No other method of travel except hopping a freight train provided them much of a chance of escaping capture. The problem with the freight train idea was that they still had to get to Santa Fe before they could hop on one going in the right direction.
Mark headed out of town, taking highway 502 toward Santa Fe. From there they’d get up on I-25 until they got to Albuquerque where they could catch I-40 west.
“How long do you think we have until they sic the cops on us?”
Heather shook her head. “Our folks won’t miss us until morning.”
“And the guy whose car we just stole.”
“He’s in the bar, and I don’t think he planned on leaving before closing time. By then he probably won’t be sure if he drove or caught a ride with a buddy.”
Mark chuckled. “I doubt if he’ll be in any big rush to report his DUI ride home was stolen.”
“Borrowed.”
“Whatever. How far west are we going?” Mark asked.
Heather shrugged. “Several hundred miles at least. I could only get a direction from the headband signal. We’ll need another direction reading from a new spot before I can pinpoint Jen.”
“Right. Triangulation.”
“Same general concept. But subspace geometry is non-Euclidean, so it’s not quite as simple as laying down a map and drawing a couple of intersecting lines.”
Mark grinned. “That’s why it’s a good thing I have you along, eh? To handle all that jazz.”
“And all that jazz.” Heather reached over and touched Mark’s arm. “I’m so glad I have you with me. I don’t think I could do it by myself.”
Mark squeezed her hand, a lump rising in his throat. “I’ll always be here for you. I swear it on my dead mother’s eyes.”
Heather laughed out loud at the old B-movie line. “Thank you. I think I’ll sleep now.”
True to her word, Heather leaned over until her head rested on Mark’s shoulder and closed her eyes. Long before they reached Santa Fe, she was sound asleep. For the next several hours, the pressure of her head slowly put Mark’s shoulder and right arm to sleep as well, but he ignored it. God’s archangel Michael could come down and smite him for all he cared, but he’d be damned if he’d make a move to wake her.
Her head rested on his shoulder. If Mark could have made the moment last for eternity, he would have. And, just so, they passed through Santa Fe, then Albuquerque, then Gallup, as the stars rose higher in the sky and the moon sank toward the west.
Jennifer was out there somewhere to the west–northwest. What she was trying to do, he had no idea. Mark just knew that he wanted his sister back, wanted the three of them back to what they used to be. But that wasn’t likely. Jennifer was a runaway, and he and Heather were now car thieves, all of them pulled forward by forces well beyond their control.
Mark’s thoughts went back to the day when he had found the Second Ship, when they had first tried on the alien headsets. If he had known then what he knew now, how they would be augmented, how it would change their lives so drastically, would he have even tried the damn thing on? Would he have even ventured near the alien starship?
The answer struck at his heart. Yes. God help him. Given everything he had learned, everything they had suffered to this point, he would still do exactly the same thing.
As the white lines that divided the lanes of I-40 swept by beneath him, Mark looked up at the sinking full moon. If he could have bayed like a werewolf, he would have.