The Undead Kama Sutra Read Free

tuningfork. Glowing blue rings from St. Elmo’s fire curled around my wrists and ankles. The hair lifted from my scalp. My kundalini noir —that black serpent of energy residing in every vampire instead of a heart—coiled in panic. Get out of here.
    My hands and feet stayed put. All around, the little fish floated lifelessly in the water.
    The Wave Runner rocked backward. Something huge rose from the water in front of me.

Chapter
3
    A smooth, pewter-gray hump the width of a tennis court rose from the sea. My Wave Runner slipped backward on the water cascading from an enormous rim surrounding the hump.
    The object lifted clear of the sea, then hovered noiselessly about fifty feet before me. It had a spherical body bisected by a wide disk.
    A flying saucer. A UFO. One straight from the late-night drive-in movies. Those guys with the cheesy special effects had it right all along.
    Odin had asked for my help in finding his assassin. Why didn’t he ask these aliens? Unless this UFO was robotic…or was this more of the scheming among the aliens? Odin had told me that extraterrestrials had to keep their visits secretbecause Earth was under quarantine, which was why he’d hired me before.
    Odin also asked that I save the Earth women. But from what, exactly?
    The grip of the blaster poked against my belly but I remained paralyzed. Not that the gun would do me much good. The crew of this ship certainly had more dangerous weapons, and if they wanted me dead, they could’ve disintegrated me already.
    A hatch about a meter square opened in the belly of the sphere and a faint beam of light fixed upon my craft. Rain sparkled in the light, like confetti. The bundle holding Odin’s remains started to vibrate. The Wave Runner swung around as if its back end had been snagged by an invisible hook.
    The bundle strained against the bungee cords. The Wave Runner surged toward the hatch.
    The bungee cords tore loose. Odin’s bundle sproinged from the seat and levitated for a moment before floating toward the hatch. The bundle rotated and went headfirst into the UFO. The hatch closed.
    The electric charge disappeared. My limbs relaxed. The fish in the water came to life again and fluttered away.
    The UFO remained still for a moment. The rain eased and stars appeared in the black patches behind a gray mist above. The UFO rose silently and headed into the sky.
    Sayonara, Gilbert Odin.
    When the UFO was a speck in the mist, I reached to my waist and pulled out the blaster. Whoever shot Odin had usedan alien weapon, maybe this one. I examined the knobs and the strange markings.
    The rain stopped abruptly.
    I looked up. The UFO loomed directly over me.
    Startled, I shrank against the seat. Why had they returned? To abduct and probe me? My sphincter tightened.
    I readied to dive into the water. The electric pulse returned and my limbs were paralyzed as before.
    The hatch opened again and the beam of light focused on me. The blaster trembled in my hand.
    A voice spoke from the light, a feminine voice, calm yet stern—like a warning from a librarian. “Let go of the weapon.”
    I released my grip. The blaster floated upward through the hatch.
    “Thank you.” The beam vanished. My muscles relaxed. The hatch closed and the UFO rose to zoom upward through the sky. Rain pelted me again.
    I’d been hoping the ray gun would even the odds when I found Odin’s killer. Not anymore.
    I grasped the handles of the Wave Runner and wondered if it would start again. Thankfully, the engine coughed to life and burbled the water. I swung the Wave Runner east and cranked the throttle full-open.
    A half-mile from shore, a couple of fighter jets screeched in my direction. They roared above, two F-16s armed with air-to-air missiles. As they zoomed past, strobe lights blinking, the auras of the pilots looked like crimson smears against the darkness.
    The jets pitched upward on the trajectory of the UFO. If the fighters were after the saucer, good luck. Odin’s