Blood Groove (28 page)

She licked her lips and, before she changed her mind, nodded.

Later she would have time to absorb what it had felt like to have her will and personality completely overwhelmed by a desire so strong it rivaled the blood-hunger. Zginski took her on the floor of the room, and she responded with a ferocity she’d never imagined she could feel. He broke through her intimate barrier at some point, but she had no clear memory of the moment amid the general thrashing, writhing, and moaning.

Guided by his hands and her own need, she descended into sex that was as ferocious as any attack. Her nails tore at his skin, flaying strips from his back and arms, while he left vicious bites on her breasts and shoulders. Finally they again sank their fangs into each other’s neck, merging in a way she’d never imagined possible, and she experienced psychic sensations of his orgasm along with the intensity of her own. The mutual climax left her a weak, shredded thing limp in his arms.

Later she lay beside him on the floor and felt his body grow rigid as the true sleep came over him. His power over her faded as well, and she was back to her full self, aware and in control. She felt the blood between her thighs, and the soreness, but they seemed minor and inconsequential compared to the other feelings. And like the jagged wounds torn by his teeth, they would vanish after her rest.

In the darkness she studied his inert features. How much could she really trust him? Was this all part of some elaborate scheme to destroy her and her friends so he would have Memphis to himself? And how would she ever explain this to Mark?

But she didn’t regret it. As her own deathly rest claimed her, she smiled at the memory. She had given, and been taken, and it was all right. Her body was a fair exchange for being given back the sunlight.

Z
GINSKI SAID TO
Olive, “And so, my dear, please tell us where your friend Toddy acquired the gray powder.”

They stood in the warehouse shadows shortly after night-fall, in a loose circle around Olive. She had on a hot pink tank top and white denim pants, and clearly relished the attention. With her hands on her hips she said, “I suppose I’ve kept you in suspenders long enough. Toddy got his stuff . . .”

She paused, then giggled. “Sorry, y’all just look so goddam
serious
. Anyway, Toddy got his stuff . . .”

Again she paused and giggled.

“Olive,” Mark warned.

“Okay, okay, sorry. He got it at the Red Palace.”

Mark and Fauvette exchanged a puzzled look. Leonardo said, “Say
what
?” Zginski merely folded his arms and waited for more.

“He went there for the laser shows,” Olive continued. “He did love his hippie music. And I think he used to stay after everyone left to run around and mess with stuff. They got mummies there, you know.”

“I take it this ‘Red Palace’ is a museum?” Zginski said.

“Yes,” Mark said. “Downtown, by the river. They have
laser shows in the planetarium. Kids go to get stoned and watch the pretty lights.”

“Is a ‘planetarium’ something like an orrery?” Zginski asked.

“An ornery what?” Leonardo asked.

“It displays the motions of the stars and planets,” Zginski explained.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Olive said.

Zginski nodded. “And a laser is . . . ?”

“A really skinny beam of light,” Mark said.

Zginski nodded, although the explanation meant nothing to him. “Then we should visit this Red Palace and its planetarium, and see what we may discover about your friend’s activities there.”

“All of us?” Leonardo asked, clearly a challenge.

Zginski merely smiled. “Of course. Friends can always be trusted.” He offered his arm to Fauvette, and after refusing to meet Mark’s perplexed gaze, she took it.

   Lee Ann slept the day away in the back of the truck. She had pulled on her T-shirt at some point, but otherwise had not moved. The sun shone directly on the camper all afternoon, and the hot air had no way to escape, so she was covered in sweat and weaker than she could ever recall. Her dreams were almost-nightmares of clawing through choking dirt toward the distant air above, where something wonderful awaited her.

When Zginski opened the hatch over the tailgate she did not stir, and he had to speak her name twice before she awoke. Even then her eyelids fluttered for several moments before finally opening. She stretched, displaying far more bare flesh than she probably intended, and said through her yawn, “
Fuck
, I’m thirsty.”

Then she stared at the faces peering in at her and clutched
the rest of her clothes to protect her modesty. “What’s going on?”

“We are visiting the Red Palace,” Zginski said.

“We are?” she said blankly. “Why?”

“For nothing you need be concerned with.” He climbed over the tailgate and into the camper. Fauvette followed. Mark started to comment, but Fauvette caught his eye and shook her head. He scowled, but did not force the issue.

Zginski stroked Lee Ann’s sweaty, tangled hair. “Fauvette has need of you, Lee Ann.”

“What about you?” she said, reaching tentatively to touch his face.

“At the moment, I wish for you to give yourself to Fauvette as thoroughly as you do to me.”

Lee Ann’s disappointment was obvious, but she obediently began to remove her T-shirt. Fauvette put a hand on her arm. “That’s okay,” she said softly. “What I need doesn’t require you to be naked.” She guided Lee Ann back down and bent to her old bite on the girl’s neck. The truck rattled to life as Fauvette replenished what she’d lost with Zginski.

“Thirsty,” Lee Ann whimpered, so quietly it was lost in the road noise. “Please, I’m so thirsty . . .”

   They returned to the apartment complex where Danielle Roseberry lived after filling a gas can, buying jumper cables, and letting Lee Ann drink a half gallon of orange Gatorade. The remains of the burned-out car had been removed, leaving only a patch of scorched pavement. Zginski considered asking Dr. Roseberry to join their expedition, but decided one less person to watch out for would be better.

Lee Ann’s car would not start until she put some gasoline directly into the carburetor; then it rumbled to life. Zginski and Fauvette rode with her, while Mark, Leonardo, and Olive followed in the truck.

The route took them along the riverfront, past the bridge to Arkansas and the flat-topped, round form of the Mid-South Coliseum. At last they entered a genteel neighborhood of parks and manor houses, and turned down a winding driveway. Ahead the Red Palace waited, illuminated by safety lights and the parking lot’s streetlamps.

The Red Palace was aptly named, since it had been constructed in 1920 out of red bricks, with its elaborate wooden trim painted a darker crimson. The parking lot faced the main entrance, located in the center of the rectangular five-story building. At the far end a round structure, like the dot atop a lowercase “i,” stood set off from the main edifice. This was the Hoving Planetarium, attached to the museum itself by a single enclosed corridor. There were several cars already parked, and a group of teenagers waited outside the domed planetarium building.

Mark parked beside Lee Ann’s car, and when Zginski emerged he and Lee Ann were in the midst of an argument.

“I don’t
know
why!” Lee Ann snapped. “It’s just a song on the radio!”

“But it makes no sense,” Zginski insisted. “If he is in the desert alone, for apparently days, why would he
not
name his horse?”

“A problem?” Mark asked Fauvette.

“Culture shock,” she replied, and rolled her eyes.

Zginski stepped close to Lee Ann. “Wait for us in the automobile.”

“But—” she started to protest.

He touched the hollow of her throat, very lightly. She gasped. “Wait,” he repeated, and she nodded.

Mark bent to Fauvette’s ear and whispered, “Can we talk?”

“Later,” she said, and patted his hand.

Zginski turned to the others. “I do not know precisely what we seek here. Perhaps someone who knew your friend,
and can relate more of his activities. Perhaps the very person behind his death. I ask that you each keep your eyes open for anything that might provide us with a clue. I never met the late Toddy, so only you would know his potential behavior.”

“And then we come tell you, is that it?” Leonardo said.

“That would be wise.”

“Huh,” Leonardo snorted.

Zginski fixed his eyes on him, but his tone stayed even. “The mind behind this is well aware of us. He understands more about how we exist than any of you do; perhaps even more than I. I would not choose to face him alone, and on his terms. It would therefore be unwise for you to do so.”

“How do you know it’s a ‘him’?” Olive asked.

“I do not,” Zginski agreed. “In fact, I know nothing, and will learn nothing out here. Come.” He led them toward the sidewalk that ran along the front of the museum building, past its main entrance.

Leonardo touched Mark’s sleeve as they walked, and Mark dropped back a few steps. “Dude seem a lot more mellow than he was?” Leonardo asked softly.

Mark shrugged. “Mellow how?”

“Like he got him some last night.”

“We were with him until sunup,” Mark said, bristling at the suggestion. “When would he have gotten it?”

“Dunno, man. Just sayin’ what I’m seein’.”

Ahead, Fauvette walked beside Zginski, their hands repeatedly brushing. Was Mark seeing things, or did they both spread their fingers to ensure the brief moment of contact?

They passed the four great columns that supported the balconied porch over the museum entrance. An informative bronze plate attached to one of them explained that the color scheme was the direct request of the man who put up the money for the construction.

Zginski suddenly stopped, turned, and went back to the plate. The others watched him read it again, running his
fingers over a particular name. At last Olive said, “Hell, even I could’ve read all that boring shit by now. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Zginski said distractedly. “A name I did not expect to encounter.”

Olive peered past him and read aloud, “ ‘Sir Francis Colby.’ Friend of yours?”

“Hardly,” Zginski said. Then he strode toward the planetarium so quickly the others had to rush to keep up.

Fifteen people gathered outside the double doors embossed with stars and ringed planets. All but two were male, and most had long hair, scruffy clothes, and glazed, red-rimmed eyes. A distinct, sweet-smelling smoke hung in the air. Many sported scraggly facial hair and T-shirts proclaiming things Zginski could not identify. He wondered at the cultural significance of Frampton coming alive; perhaps it was a religious cult built around the curly-haired messiah splashed across the girl’s ample chest.

“Is it Zeppelin tonight?” one of the boys asked.

“Naw,” his friend replied, chewing a mouthful of Frito’s chips. “I think it’s Parliament.”

“Who?”

“One of them big funky bands, with the horns and everything.”

“It’s not Zep?” a third man asked, his voice rising with his outrage. “Or
Floyd
?”

“Shit,” the first man said. “Parliament. Figures it’d be nigger music.”

His friend jabbed him in the ribs and pointed to Olive and Leonardo. “It’s cool,” he said in exaggerated street talk, so that the final word actually came out “coo.” They turned away with ashamed casualness.

“Stoned white crackers,” Leonardo muttered. “I must not be living right if I got to hang out with them.”

“You ain’t living at all,” Olive pointed out.

“That’s a natural fact,” he agreed. “Least the show should be good.
Parliament
,” he said with a grin.

“Can you translate this conversation for me?” Zginski said softly to Fauvette.

“They’re talking about different music they use during the show. Parliament is the name of a band.”

“Ah. It’s not the one who sings about nameless horses in the desert, is it?”

“I doubt it.”

“Good.”

An attendant, not much older than most of the kids, opened the door and began collecting admission. He exchanged soul handshakes with several of the patrons, obviously regulars. Zginski paid for them all with money taken from Lee Ann. The attendant stared at them as they entered, but said nothing.