Carole Douglas - Virtual Virgin

“No. I just hope that means we have the Virgin of Guadalupe on our side.”

“We all met up last night a bit farther north, but this is that same long ridge where Ric is sure Torbellino’s soldiers will hunker down, ready to mow down escapees from the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels clash up there.”

“And the Mexican-US forces will stay north to capture whoever survives the cartel war too, entirely unaware of this side of the contest farther south?” I wanted to get the combatants and the geography straight.

“Yup. Torbellino will form an unsuspected trap south of the action, offing any rival cartel men who escape the government trap. That’ll make him chief dog in the border smuggling trade.”

“So two guys, a gal, and a dog are going to take out Torbellino’s army?” I asked.

“It was supposed to have been just two guys,” Tallgrass reminded me sternly. “And Ric only wanted me along as backup.”

“Talk about a Lone Ranger. Maybe he has some secret weapon.”

“Maybe you.” Tallgrass chuckled.” I suppose you were too busy using your feminine wiles last night to get all the logistical details out of him.”

“Wiles take time. I prefer truth. I never thought Ric could or would keep something this big secret from me.”

Tallgrass shook his head at Ric’s solo act. “The gal and dog weren’t in our original plans, but we four did pretty well against Torbellino’s Wichita posse. All I know is Ric wanted to wait and take El Demonio down on their common ground where he’d once been a helpless child.”

“Ric’s personal crusade is the source of his greatest personal danger,” I told Tallgrass. “He’ll never allow anyone else to be enslaved as he was, and he’s absolutely fierce and fearless in going after the exploiters. That’s why I had to follow him here. By the way, I love the new accessory you guys got me during your spending spree in town. It really looks cool with my camouflage jammies.”

I saluted the night vision goggles casually stationed atop my head where California women wore sunglasses 24/7.

Then I lowered the goggles to focus first on the heat lightning doing a war dance on the night horizon, then far closer and below, on Ric and Quicksilver. Funny, Ric hadn’t been upset about the dog’s presence here, in the heart of battle, I couldn’t help grumbling mentally.

Together the hunting pair had reassembled the panicking desert reptile and insect life of last night into a thin silver line down in the sand canyon’s crease. Together, they were belly-crawling up the next ridge, which was the only cover between here and the Valley of Guadalupe.

There the sagebrush stations of hidden weaponry were now shaking with the emergence of a low-profile army of drug-and-zombie smuggling gangs and hitmen.

The silent night was abruptly interrupted by distant automatic gunfire chattering amid the spectacular fireworks of exploding grenades and shoulder-launched missiles. Out of sight to the north the warring cartels were fully engaged and clashing like an electric storm, harried into mowing each other down to escape a pincer operation of combined government forces.

The rumbling north of this valley obscured the vibrating chirrs and humming and scale-scrapings of the agitated and silver-armed insect and reptile foot soldiers Ric and Quick had gathered until they were poised like the top curl of a gigantic surfing wave about to wash over El Demonio’s forces.

“Let’s bring up the rear here and put Torbellino’s ass in a silver sling,” Tallgrass hissed in my ear.

A rear in a silver sling. Nicely put.

Tallgrass grinned up at the fading northern fireworks in the sky above one last time.

Then we turned sideways to crest the ridge behind the one Ric held now and maneuver down the steep sides of the earthen gash, our booted feet moving fast to catch up to the advance party of two. We knew that Ric’s showdown with his childhood enslaver had to put him first and foremost in the confrontation and that Quicksilver was the best scout in the party.

Soon we were approaching the quivering and broadening silver band making a do-or-die border like the Rio Grande. The maraca racket of all those metal scales and wings, feelers and legs, quieted and stopped. Like an ice-frozen river, the living shimmer of creatures stopped.

Tallgrass and I hastened to reach Ric’s back, Quicksilver sitting beside him.

The lightning on the horizon ahead of us grew bigger and snapped like a chupacabra twitching its tail. Yet we faced a vastly different scene from last night.

Across the wide valley massed the forces of hell.

Talk about a rag and a bone and a hank of hair. Row upon row of feral zombies, a standing army, twitched and writhed like giant maggots, all white bone and bared red muscle in the moonlight. Only then did I see the black iron shackles that made them into chain gangs.

Any remaining flesh gleamed in the moonlight, reflecting the actual maggots burrowing through what was left, ready to drop off on living prey.

“They’re . . . dancing?” I wondered aloud. Then I got it.

We were confronting an entire army of the new-generation zombies El Demonio Torbellino had created, hop-heads jived on crystal meth, a perfect meshing of the drug and the zombie trades.

“I’m going down,” Ric announced, turning so I could see the lightning flashes reflected in his exposed silver iris. “You two hold the high ground here until I get something going down there. Proceed at your own discretion. Be advised I don’t intend to be heavily into discretion tonight.”

He started down the incline to the Valley of Guadalupe, his every step pushing the silver wave of desert vermin at his feet ahead of him.

I lowered the high-tech binos that read bones, not heat, to my eyes for an ugly, close-up view.

“That’s it?” I asked Tallgrass. “Those are our only marching orders?”

“It’s mano-a-mano now. Our boys are both in the ring.”

Now I could see El Demonio had arrived at the jitterbugging zombies’ forefront. He sat on his traveling throne, the trunk of a black sixties Lincoln Continental convertible, his feet planted on the backseat. He was riding the stalled car like the grand marshal in a grisly parade of death, greed, and utter evil. He also was committing vintage car abuse.

I’d never forget his face as I first saw it in Wichita. At this safe distance I could study it longer. The brim of his flat-crowned black leather hat cut across the satanically arched eyebrows overhanging his hooded gaze. Thin high-flared nostrils made his nose as flat as a snake’s, his lipless mouth a raw slash like deli-sliced rare beef.

Why hadn’t I recognized who Torbellino looked like before? He was the spitting image of the sinister corporate muscleman in Metropolis who was only known as The Thin Man. That reminded me of the film title that had introduced my CinSim friends, Nick and Nora Charles, to an adoring public. Weird that something so innocent and light echoed something so evil.

Two chupacabras flanked the car, their eyes gleaming red with smoke steaming from their scaly hides like a visible stink. This multibreed creature resembled a small dinosaur with leathery gray-green skin and sharp quills down its spine and tail.

Despite the lizardlike quality, its fanged face, smoldering red eyes, and black forked tongue gave it demonic cast. To underline that, I can speak from experience that a chupacabra’s every exhalation broadcast the hellish and overcoming reek of sulfur.

I had reason to know chupacabras weren’t the biggest and brightest monster at the matinee, but they sure were among the ugliest.

Tallgrass was shaking his head at the opposition. “I didn’t believe in chupacabras until I saw that one in Wichita. Just how dangerous are those mythical beasts? It’s not a native Midwest monster.”