A growl turned my attention to the front.

A wolf guarded the mouth into the tunnel. Its orange aura roiled like fire. The two eyes glowed bright as heated iron.

Good show, but this wolf hadn't been paying attention to current events. So far the score was: our side, two; wolves, zero. And I still had bullets in my pistol.

I fired once.

The wolf yelped and jumped.

I fired again.

The wolf's front legs folded, and the animal collapsed, hindquarters and rump sticking into the air. The orange aura vanished, as if blown out.

Coyote and I ran through the tunnel past the dead wolf as it turned into the trim shape of a female vampire. Tattoos encircled the arms. It was Rachel, the human receptionist from Gomorrah Video who later, as a vampire, drove the limo that shuttled me to Petale Venin. I had warned her.

Men jogged through the parking area. Red laser pointers crisscrossed the ground like feelers.

Coyote crashed through the brush ahead of me, and I lost him. I headed west in the scrub parallel to Mulholland Drive. The dense woods and terrain swallowed the noise coming from Cragnow's estate.

Coyote and I had knocked off the primary guard force, the wolves. Smart tactic for Cragnow, if it would've worked. I had expected vampire lookouts and technical surveillance, not furry undead killers.

I loaded a fresh magazine into my pistol.

An orange glow outlined the scrub branches. I raised my pistol.

"Don't shoot, vato," whispered Coyote.

He stepped though a gap in the scrub, a skinny old-man frame-naked, save for the tennis shoes on his feet. He carried his clothes wadded under one arm.

"You can get dressed," I said.

"Later, ese. The night air feels good." He continued for his truck, the muscles of his scrawny ass cheeks flexing and relaxing as he strode along. Blood trickled from the scratches on his neck and shoulders.

"You okay?" I asked. I massaged the bite on my wrist, feeling the torn flesh mend itself. "You're bleeding."

Coyote wiped the blood from his skin. "A la Madre. It's mine. Next time, vato, I'll let you handle all the chingasos."

We did the usual drill with his beater Ford. I pushed it out into the street and pushed again to start the rusted jalopy. I was getting too much practice at this.

Coyote drove the long way back to Boyle Heights, taking Mulholland to Beverly Glen Boulevard, Sunset, then the 405 and finally the Santa Monica Freeway.

At every intersection and turn I expected the police to ambush us. After all, Cragnow only need jerk the chain of his buddy, Deputy Police Chief Julius Paxton. I kept my pistol handy. I didn't want to kill any human cops if they were doing their jobs and had no idea of this vampire insurrection. But my fellow undead were fair game.

So far, no cops. No one chasing us. No helicopters. "This is too easy," I said.

Coyote's forehead wrinkled and the ends of his mustache quivered. "You crazy? We barely escaped."

"Cragnow expected only me, so three wolves would've been enough, even with my gun," I said. "He underestimated me, or rather, us. Next time, he won't."

We arrived at Coyote's house, passing delivery trucks bringing newspapers and fresh bread to convenience stores and markets.

Coyote let his truck roll to the bottom of the dip and turned his heap around so it faced the right way when it was time to leave.

A cerulean band of sky appeared above the mountains of the Angeles National Forest. Dawn approached, and my kundalini noir coiled in fear of the morning light.

No suspicious auras lurked in the neighborhood. No cops. The neighborhood was as quiet and serene as a crypt.

On the way into his house, Coyote gathered a handful of sticks. He broke them into pieces the length of a pencil. Coyote paced the perimeter of his yard and worked a stick into the ground every few paces.

"What's that for?" I asked.

"My alarm system. Anybody or anything crosses those sticks"-Coyote snapped his fingers-"I'm awake."

"Where did you learn this?"

"Un guajiro Tarahumara." A shaman from the Tarahumara Indians.

"Does it work?"

"Like magic."

"Like the same magic that starts your truck?" Hope not. With Coyote's «high-tech» security system protecting us, I headed downstairs to rest and escape the morning's rays.

Water dripped from the ceiling where it leaked from the wet kitchen floor. I lay in the coffin and counted the drips splashing against the lid until I fell asleep.

By midafternoon we were up. I inspected the circle of sticks, looking for evidence of tampering or unusual footprints. "Nothing happened."

"Are you surprised, ese? Nothing bad can happen to us inside the circle. It worked."

"Just because you put in those sticks and nothing happened," I said, "is like saying a drink of whiskey is good medicine to prevent snakebites."

"It's not?"

"We're going to need more than superstitions to protect us."

"Vato, listen to yourself. A vampire who doesn't believe in superstitions? It's a cosmic contradiction."

Coyote made coffee and stirred blood into a pot of posole. I cleaned up and shaved.

"Let's go have a talk with Dr. Niphe." I sat at the table and sprinkled Cholula hot sauce over a bowl of the posole. "What was he doing up there partying with Cragnow and those hookers? On a school night, no less." I pulled a tortilla from the stack kept warm under a towel.

Coyote tore a piece of tortilla and scooped it into his bowl. "Do we surprise him?"

"Of course we surprise him. This time we'll come in through the roof and pull him out of surgery if we have to."

We finished our meal. I gathered a few of my things into my overnight bag, in case we got delayed. Roxy's file and my laptop remained downstairs, next to the coffin. I topped off my pistol magazines.

Coyote climbed into his truck. I set the overnight bag on the sidewalk. I braced my shoulder against the tailgate of the truck and pushed.

The truck moved up the hill, gaining speed as I advanced from a trot to a run. The truck lurched when the engine caught. I let go. Coyote waved his arm for me to jump aboard.

I turned to fetch my bag. The truck was about to crest the slope when the engine coughed. Sparks shot from the undercarriage.

An explosion ripped open the engine compartment and shook the ground. The fenders flew apart, and the hood went spinning. An enormous fireball welled inside the cab, shattered the windows, and ballooned upward. The hot blast slapped my face.

Coyote.

I screamed his name.

The flaming carcass of the pickup rolled backward down the dip, right toward me. A chorus of car alarms wailed throughout the neighborhood.

I wanted to reach into the cab and snatch Coyote free. But the inferno warned me off. No one could've survived, not even a vampire. Helpless, I stepped back and raised my arm to shield my face from the heat.

The truck jumped the curb and smashed through the chain-link fence. The truck rumbled straight for Coyote's home and crashed through the porch to settle inside his kitchen like a gigantic Molotov cocktail.

A second explosion sent jets of flame cascading out the door and windows. The roof hopped a few inches, fire erupting past the joists, and broke into pieces. The rear end of the truck tipped up as the floor gave way and the house collapsed onto itself.

I stumbled dumbstruck toward the flaming ruins, unwilling to comprehend what I'd witnessed. I wanted to believe that at any second Coyote would reappear, either jumping from the flames like a rodeo clown or simply popping into plain sight as if he'd always been there.

Coyote's magic warning sticks lay trampled under tire marks. His truck had been outside the circle when the bomb was planted. That's why we didn't get a warning.