"Because I hugged him - and I'm still sitting here in the sunlight."
"Oh, that's just f**king great!" Rider shook his head and pushed himself back in his chair. "We fight six vamps and their ringleader, have the compound invaded, a man on a stretcher - and a guy with a possible nick in his system gets up close and personal with our vampire huntress - like in jugular range? Why am I following this woman to New Orleans - to a lair, in the middle of known vampire country, huh? Just answer me that!"
"You should have seen the look on his face," Damali said. "He was like Dan. Freaked out. Confused. Maybe he did see something in the woods, and got the hell out of there - which is why the money was left behind. Or maybe it was a drug deal gone bad and he made it out before he ran into Dan. He might have shot one of them and took their car. Or maybe he was delivering a bounty for his family - knowing Carlos, that's what he was doing, because he still can't wrap his mind around this madness. Can you blame him? Did you, when you saw your first set of fangs?"
Rider continued to sit back in his chair with his arms folded, appearing grudgingly mollified.
Big Mike sighed. "We aren't going to get anywhere arguing amongst ourselves. That's always evil's strategy - divide and conquer. They did it with the religions, cultures, nations, and it's happening now with us. Unify. Respect each others' points of view... and have compassion for each others' weaknesses... and squash this bullshit - now!"
Both Rider and Damali nodded, but looked off in different directions with their arms still folded over their chests.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Tell me again why we just took a flight from L.A. to New Orleans at seven-oh-five in the morning, with no sleep, no real weapons - because we have no real luggage, other than a duffle bag with some lights and disguised stakes and shit - which has put us in New Orleans, by way of Dallas, in the middle of mosquito country, at two nineteen in the afternoon... and, we only have an hour to spare, traffic notwithstanding, to go back home? Huh? I'm just curious why we headed east to lose two hours of precious sun, when the light is two hours to our favor in the west - on a wild goose chase, I might add - please, somebody tell me?"
Damali kept her eyes focused on the expressway, monitoring the signs on I-10 as she pushed her foot down on the gas. "First of all, it's still just a little past noon back in L.A., Rider, which means we'll fly into the light and out of the dark. And, Dan is handling the interviews - gives him a chance to get some media hype... he gave them my photo and a statement for the interviews I'll miss. So just relax."
Rider glared at her and then took up his argument with Big Mike, who only shook his head.
"We are in a Budget rental car, not a fortified Hum-V - and we are heading northwest to the Lakefront area - which just so happens to dead end, literally, at a cemetery."
Rider folded his arms over his chest, imploring Mike with a glance to take up his cause. "So, I ask myself - self, what is wrong with this picture? Why would a reasonable man - who has been on starvation monk rations - pass the renowned French Quarter and all its daytime beauties, give up the best poker and gambling in the country, not hit a liquor store in the city that never closes its bars, to go, practically unarmed, into a master vampire's lair on a hummer?"
When Damali continued to ignore Rider, and Big Mike would only chuckle, Rider's pleas became more fervent.
"I also ask myself - self, why... for the love of God, would I go to a place that got its start in very shaky historical circumstances of double-crossings, royal crown incest, and war... where six thousand people just coincidentally died of cholera, twelve thousand more of yellow fever... where it was so bad that the dead wagons would roll down the streets and the local authorities would shout, 'Bring out your dead!' Huh? We are going to a place where fires burned the city down however many times - and they have cities of the dead within the city - where there're swamps and alligators and snakes and hurricanes and floods and because the water table is so high, tombs are aboveground, not buried, like in most urban environs, in these mass-tomb cities... is anybody feelin' me? It's the vampire Big Apple, okay?"
Big Mike laughed and pounded Rider's fist. "I feel you - the vamps got a point. The women are fine, the food is good - crawfish and po-boys and jambalaya, red beans and rice, jazz..."
"Yes," Rider snapped, not amused. "In the daytime, Mike. In the damned daytime! I do not want to have bouillabaisse or a well-seasoned roux sucked out of my neck by one of the thousands of topside grave dwellers who might still have a penchant for fine dining! Do you hear me? I'm trying to live the quiet life - I'm reformed - we already did a Mardi Gras together, you and I, remember?"
"Yeah..." Big Mike drawled. "I remember."
"Remember? That's putting it mildly - how about a mental tattoo, for chrissake? A hundred thousand women in the streets, most of them inebriated to perfection and willing to part with their bras and panties for mere plastic beads - and what did we wind up with?"
"Two of the finest, biggest assed, worth-your-jugular-rock-da-house female vamps in the world, Rider... aw man," Big Mike sighed and closed his eyes. "It was awesome - I love New Orleans! Damn... I remember like it was yesterday. Sorry for the vivid recollection, baby sis, but Rider just took me back."
"You have to get him out of the compound more, Damali. I can't take it!"
Rider opened his arms when Damali began laughing and he pretended to stake himself in the chest. "Do you see what I have to contend with? Big Mike ain't been right since he got blasted by gris-gris voodoo!"
Big Mike peered up at Damali and winked.
"But she was fine, man," Big Mike chuckled and shut his eyes again, still laughing. "Part Choctaw, part Creole, part Caribbean-African queen... and she could cook. Have mercy, brother. You don't know what you missed."
"Missed? Big Mike, let us not forget," Rider said, not believing his ears, his voice rising with every word, "she had one little character flaw, dude - fangs!"
"Yeah, but she was all that. Still get the shivers thinkin' about her."
"Mike, listen to yourself, brother!" Rider moved his arms wildly now as Damali and Big Mike laughed.
"Do you hear him, D? Do you hear the man? He's delirious, delusional...he's getting a nervous tic from being locked up in the compound too long. I can't take it. I just can't take it. Pull over and let me out - I'm going to a bar, then heading back to L.A. on the next thing smoking."
By now Damali was waving her hand for them to cut it out. She couldn't breathe from laughing so hard.
"By law, they close the tombs for a year and a day - did you know that? Why? Because pestilence was once so rampant - and Mike keeps telling me the woman was fine!"
"She could make a gumbo to die for, and - "