Carole Douglas - Silver Zombie

What would link Ric and his ancient enemy, El Demonio, to a rare film now bound to become an unbeatable attraction for Snow’s Vegas empire?

Besides me?

UNFORTUNATELY, A FEMALE presence did not encourage the drug cartel thugs to restrain themselves.

Their flaunted lighters and straight razors, though, could only produce bloody gurgles from Ben Hassard. These minions were too stupidly brutal to get any answers that would satisfy their absent boss. So, they were primed to commit mass slaughter to take their minds off El Demonio’s reaction to their failure. I didn’t want Ben to die.

I had few options, but at least I was being ignored. I’d be safe until they decided to off witnesses, or play games with the helpless girl. I really had nothing to lose here but time to act.

So, I baaed softly. Baaaa-maaa.

Call me goat-girl.

The chained chupacabra in the corner perked up.

My, what a multibreed beastie it was seen close-up, a little like Barney the purple dinosaur if one wanted to put a soft and cuddly spin on it. The leathery gray-green skin and the quills defining its spine and tail gave it a lizard-like quality, and its blunt-snouted and fanged face flaunted a black forked tongue. Every exhalation broadcast the reek of sulfur. Too many bean burritos for lunch? Or was “dragon” a part of its pedigree? I gathered it would eat me rather than fry me long-distance. Chupacabras were notorious for draining the blood of goats, and I was certainly tied up like a Judas one.

I’m a versatile chick. I puckered my lips and made sucking noises. Snow one hour, a chupacabra the next. Dolly and I have dual exhausts and aim to please. Come on, Chupie, come to maaa-maaa.

I saw the creature make a mighty lunge forward, straining the chain.

Behind me, Ben Hassard was groaning unintelligibly.

Bastards!

My low-key baas only spoke Chupacabra and I repeated them mindlessly, until the creature broke loose with a snap of its chain and a weird baying sound.

That’s when I rolled under the knee hole in Hassard’s desk, pushing his chair toward the back wall, hearing the unleashed monster behind me pinning the first responders in his path and sucking their blood with mucho gusto … a Dios, El Demonio’s henchmen. …

My silver familiar shifted into a workman’s switchblade—an X-Acto knife. In my fingers the heavy blade sawed through my wire wrist and ankle bindings.

Still curled in the shelter of the desk’s knee hole, I managed to grab the star-shaped rays of Ben’s desk chair base and spin it like a lazy Susan until his duct-taped ankles came my way. An X-Acto knife would mangle the rubbery tape. The familiar morphed into heavy pinking shears and snapped its edged jaws right through.

By the time I dragged myself up to look over the desk, the once-captive chupacabra was ranging free and dining on drug cartel muscle. Literally. Its fangs pierced major arteries in their fat-solidified bodies as its black tongue sucked up the pooling blood like a straw.

The familiar was just chomping off the bonds on Hassard’s wrists when the outside glass window shattered. Quicksilver leaped through to knock down the last retreating thug and run to me, leaving the downed man for the oncoming chupacabra.

I grabbed Quick’s collar.

An instant later, Ric waded through the shards of broken glass to sweep us both to the back wall while Tallgrass edged around chupacabra and victim to pull Ben Hassard’s rolling desk chair back to our defensive position.

The chupacabra celebrated its freedom by draining every last drop it could from the last downed thug. With loud, impolite slurping sounds.

The three conscious men, dog, and I panted in exhaustion against a wall.

Chupie straightened to scan red carnivore eyes in our direction. And burped. Full. Slowly, it waddled to the broken glass panel to make its way into the night.

“I’m glad El Chupacabra drank its fill of El Demonio leavings,” Tallgrass said.

He was bending over his friend, stanching the mass of bloody wounds with strips from Ben’s tattered white shirt.

“We need to get him to Emergency,” Tallgrass said.

Meanwhile, Quicksilver had thrust his big wet black nose between Tallgrass’s hands and Ben’s bloodied chest.

“Away!” Tallgrass’s angry frown turned ferocious.

Quicksilver returned a deep, rumbling growl and burrowed his nose even closer to Ben.

“Woman, get your dog off me,” Tallgrass ordered.

“Get your hands off Ben,” I ordered back. “He doesn’t need EMTs. Don’t you sense it? He needs Quicksilver.”

Tallgrass lifted an elbow to shove Quicksilver away. I instinctively moved to protect the dog. Laughable, yes, but no one raised a hand to Quicksilver while I was around.

Ric’s forearm slashed out of nowhere to meet and stop Tallgrass’s blow. The gaze he directed at the older man was even more powerful. I saw the night’s events had jolted out the contact lens and Ric’s silver eye was fully obvious … and fully potent.

“Let the dog do his work, amigo, ” Ric said. “He knows what he’s doing.”

Whether he responded to Ric’s authoritative look, sound, and action … or the gaze of his altered eye, Tallgrass visibly lassoed his rampaging emotions. He pulled back, holding up a leathery palm, a gesture calming himself as much as Ric, me, and Quicksilver.

Quick had not waited for human resolution. He was hunched over Hassard in chupacabra-over-a-victim fashion, licking the bloody shirt fabric like it was a tasty vanilla wafer atop a scoop of after-dinner ice cream.

Hassard moaned and turned his pulpy features out of a horror movie toward Quicksilver’s busy muzzle. The dog’s tongue swiped the man’s face, leaving swaths of clean, unmutilated skin behind.

A deep breath relaxed Tallgrass’s bunched shoulder muscles. “Oh, Ty-ohni, forgive me,” he whispered.

“They tortured Ben for information,” I explained. “Superficial wounds were the most hurtful. They didn’t want to kill him.”

“I knew that, Miss Delilah,” Tallgrass said, “and I saw the noble Wolf in your Quicksilver. I just didn’t know that your ‘dog’ had a shaman’s healing power.”

“He had no way to tell you,” I answered.

“Shamans are not used to explaining themselves,” Tallgrass said. “It is up to us humans to be humble and trust. My fear for Ben overcame my instincts. I apologize.” He looked at me. “You have a healing power as well, don’t you? But it is”—his stone-faced expression crumbled—“tied to things this old Indian has no business inquiring into. As for my amigo, Ricardo … I don’t know what to make of you at all.”

Ric slapped the man on the forearm.

“Forget the mystical stuff, Tallgrass. That made for tales around campfires on our stakeouts, but we have dead cartel muscle here and the attack at the Augusta Theater to figure out. Also, where that damned El Demonio is and what he wants so badly he’ll expose the long-reaching tendrils of his drug operation.”

“What about the Augusta?” I asked.

“Quicksilver tracked El Demonio’s car to the theater parking lot,” Ric explained. “Tallgrass and I went in to question the staff, and they were acting like … zombies.”

“Real zombies?”

“That came later. No, they were just intimidated people who’d been roughly interrogated. Turned out some invading mob types were after certain old movie reels one of their sponsors found in the debris in the theater basement and took away to examine on his own.”

“One of their ‘sponsors,’” I repeated.

Ric’s grimace confirmed my guess. “Right. Tallgrass’s pal Ben Hassard. We decided to come back here to figure out what was so damn precious in those old film reels, but when we tried to leave, we discovered the parking lot was being watched.”