Immortal Rage

by Jax Garren

  Dez watched him go, eyes brimming with regret before she turned to Javier, stance snapping and mouth opening like she’d yell at him. Then shock passed through her eyes, and she snapped her mouth closed. “Dr. Reyes?”

  Javier’s chin bobbed up, uncomfortable now. “Hey.”

  She leaned back against the barn, relaxing. “That was you. I thought…” She shook her head. “I thought it looked like you, but there was no way. But… here you are.” She straightened. “You’re a vampire?” Her gaze snapped from him to Emma and back. “You too?”

  The superstitious were always the first to believe the truth when it was presented, but normally vampires didn’t go around telling humans about themselves. Emma ignored the question. “We’re looking for Nephtalie. Have a couple questions about voodoo.”

  Dez looked toward the crowd warily. “You’re not going to bite me or nothing, right?”

  Emma sat down, stretching her legs out in the most unmystical pose she could cop. “Course not.”

  Dez nodded slowly as she eased down the wall to sit across from her. “Guests of the Guédé. Guess I can’t stop you even if you were.”

  “What does that mean?” Javier asked, still standing, presumably to keep watch for any other amorous couples headed their way.

  She laughed. “You told”—she hesitated just a moment before continuing—“Jamal that. You don’t know what it means?” When Javier shook his head, she laughed more. “The Guédé are the hosts of the dead. Maman Brigitte and Baron Samedi bring the dead home. Vampires, being dead and all, are right up their alley.”

  “You know a lot about voodoo, huh?” Emma asked.

  “Nephtalie’s my mama. I was brought up in it.”

  Javier’s brow lifted in surprise. “Your mother’s a voodoo queen?”

  Dez huffed a breath and picked up a leaf, peeling the flesh from the veins. “She thinks she is. Everybody else does too. So I guess so.” She nodded back at the fire. “Mama’s from Haiti, so she’s closer to the real thing than most.”

  “What do you know about zombies?”

  The leaf picking stopped as Dez looked up. “About what?”

  “Zombies.”

  A shrug and she was back at the leaf. “Mama won’t do those. She’s a mambo, not a bokor. You looking to spell someone that bad, you come to the wrong place.”

  “A what not a what? We ain’t looking to spell nobody. We just need information.”

  “Mambo’s a priestess in charge of the community of vodouists. Bokor’s a witch who’ll make any spell you want for money. They both got magic, just one’s got morals.” The bits of leaf fell to the ground, and she grabbed her legs. “You got good reason to spell somebody, we’ll listen. But we don’t make slaves.” Her gaze traveled back toward the gathering, her voice more bitter than angry. “Zombis—z-o-m-b-i—were folks back in the days of slavery whose will got stolen for the good of the community. Folks who snitched to white people or some such thing.” She dusted her hands off and stood. “We don’t know the formula no more, anyway. If I had to guess, I’d say it was a plant native to Haiti that we ain’t got here.”

  “What plant turns people into brain-craving undead?” Javier’s tone was cold with sarcasm.

  Dez pivoted to face him. “Brain-craving undead? Zombis—vodou zombis—are slaves. People under the zombi drug aren’t really dead, they just can’t think for themselves no more.” Her fists clenched. “You seen something else?”

  That explanation didn’t help. Emma nodded anyway. “Yeah. Three times. One zombie—the brain-craving kind—nearly killed one of the girls under Charming’s—oh!” Revelation struck her hard as a knife, and her voice rose in an angry rumble. “The fuck you doing back with Charming?” Jamal Warner was Charming’s real name. She knew she’d seen his face somewhere—in a photo of assholes who tricked girls into the sex trade. “You left him! You left his ass. What you doing going back?”

  Dez’rae stiffened up straight, eyes wide like a cornered animal. “Ain’t none of your business what I’m doing with Charming!”

  Frustrated anger pumped through Emma so hard she grabbed Dez’s arm and shook. “You got away from him! He’s just using you—and them other girls. Shit, that’s how Rosalie got Javi’s phone number, ain’t it? You gave it to her. You ain’t back to being his bottom girl, are you? You got out!”

  Dez jerked back but couldn’t get out of Emma’s grip. A sound of rage emerged from her. “Let me go!”

  Javier inserted himself between them. “Whoa! Ladies. Cool down.”

  Dez turned on him and shoved at his chest with her free hand. “I ain’t no lady. Don’t you hush me.”

  “Of course you’re a lady. Emma, let her go.”

  Emma rounded on him. “Oh, yeah? And if this was Rhiannon turning tricks, what would you be doing?”

  The spark of rage in his eyes told her all she needed to hear. “I’d lock her in my closet until the drugs wore off. But Dez’rae isn’t my sister, and she’s not yours either. We can’t tell her what to do.”

  “I ain’t turning tricks!” Dez growled. “He’s my bae.” Tears tracked on her cheek.

  That was the hell of it. Pimps controlled the girls by convincing them they were in love. Love was the bond that kept them coming back, even when they knew better. “You didn’t want to be here with him. I saw your face.” Love was the worst power in the world.

  “Lemme go. I answered your question. Let me go!”

  Emma dropped her arm in disgust. “Fine. Fuck up your life. You finally got it on track, and now what? Lose it all.”

  Instead of retreating, Dez advanced, eyes filled with fury. “Oh, and what you doing with your life, huh? You ain’t made some big production of yourself. From what I hear, you’re cleaning bathrooms at a charity.”

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with cleaning bathrooms!” She wanted to be indignant, but she couldn’t. Dez was right. “What else am I supposed to be doing?”

  “You’re a vampire. You should be ruling the world. And you ain’t. Why? Because you were a whore and you still think you are one. Don’t you tell me what I should or shouldn’t be doing. You ain’t doing nothing with yourself. You live like nothing, you die like nothing.”

  Frustration and sadness hit Emma like a gut punch. “I do stuff.” Like bake cookies and spend all her money so she had to live on Cash’s charity.

  “You do nothing. Me? I got plans. If I gotta do some shit to get there, I do it. Imma go to college. Imma be important.”

  “You paying for that by dealing ketamine?” Javier asked quietly, interrupting their argument.

  Dez’rae whipped around to look at him. “What? What mess you talking about?”

  Emma turned to him, equally confused. “What?”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t figure it out. Jazmin had ketamine in her system—it was why she didn’t fight. It’s usually a club drug, not a street drug, so finding it in a prostitute was unusual.” His gaze didn’t waver. “But it’s used all the time by veterinarians.”

  Dezi was a vet tech. She would have access to it. “No,” Emma insisted. “She’s got too much to lose if she gets caught. It ain’t Dez’rae.”

  Dez’rae cocked a hip, eyes narrowed. “I ain’t gonna listen to you accusing me of this mess. You ain’t got no evidence.” She tried to storm off, but Javier put a hand on her shoulder, and she stopped.

  “I bet I could find evidence pretty easily.”

  She stopped, eyes full of fire. “You don’t know nothing about me.”

  “Here’s what I think.” Javier dropped his hand, voice shockingly reasonable. “You want college, but that’s expensive. Your family won’t take you back with your history, so you’re paying for an apartment, a car to get you to work, food, everything. But even though your parents won’t let you live with them, they will take your money, and half your income’s going to feed your siblings—how many do you have?”

  Dezi licked her lips, the question hanging in the air for an uneasy moment. �
�Four.” Another pause. “I’m the oldest.”

  “The only way you’re going to afford all that and save up enough to get the education you need to get out is if you’re making extra on the side.”

  She shook her head, but she looked scared. “You don’t know nothing.”

  “I know what it’s like to make hard choices.” He touched her shoulder gently until she looked up. When he had her eye contact, he said, “Your sister died because she was so doped up she couldn’t fight. You have to quit providing them drugs.”

  Dez rubbed her face, tears starting up again. “The girls, they’re gonna do something. You gotta get out of your head if you’re in the life. If not me, then where they gonna get it? Oscar’s so nasty—he used to deal to them before, then he and Sergio’d get them doped up and rape them with lit crack pipes. You don’t know what he’s like. If somebody were to get them clean, safe drugs, someone who won’t expect extras, it’d be better than that. Better than him.” She glanced up and back. “They ain’t all like that, all the dealers. But you never know. You never know who’s gonna show up. What they’re gonna do.”

  Emma rubbed her mouth as a few pieces started falling together. “Oscar works with Charming—or used to? Or he’s a client?”

  Dezi frowned and nodded. “Why?”

  “Javi, that’s three out of four, all clients or working with the same guy. And we don’t know…” She trailed off. The fourth was his mother’s boyfriend.

  Javier’s proud stance melted into disappointment. “It’s not an outlandish guess.” An idea seemed to pass through him, relieving some of the tension. “I need to get back to the lab. Run a test.” He took Dezi’s arm. “I understand your reasons. I don’t blame you. But you have to stop before you get caught. You have plans. Make them happen—even if it means you quit sending cash home for a few years. I know it’ll hurt now, but showing your brothers and sisters how to get out is the best thing you can do for them in the long run.”

  Chapter Ten

  Javier turned the car westward, and the skyscrapers of downtown ascended before them, towers of shadow in the streetlight of pre-dawn. Crossing IH-35 was like moving to a new city, from trash-lined clapboard and rotting fences to dizzying skyscrapers of steel and glass. When Javier was growing up, the elevated highway had seemed like a wall, more steadfast and intimidating than the fantasy that politicians wanted to erect along the border with Mexico.

  Javier’s grandparents had crossed a desert and the Rio Grande to get here, carrying an infant, Javier’s dad, who’d never known a life outside of the US. And now, in spite of all obstacles, deserts and highways and crumbling families, Javier crossed under Austin’s great divide in his BMW and turned up Congress Avenue toward CoVIn’s headquarters.

  The pristine tower, with a bank symbol on the side to hide its true purpose, was one of the more interesting pieces of architecture in the city. At thirty-three stories, it had once been Austin’s tallest building but had since been dwarfed by condos. Atop CoVIn’s skyscraper, four pyramids of glass rose like teeth—or like nose-hair clippers, according to some of the locals. He’d made the joke himself, until he’d realized vampires had built it.

  They were teeth.

  He pulled into the underground lot and found a place. “I hope you don’t mind. I need to get these samples to the lab.” He hesitated. “I don’t think I could make it out to Cash’s and back home before dawn anyway.”

  She pulled the key card she’d gotten him from her purse and hopped from the car. “Good thing you’ve got a place here—it came furnished, even. Mind if I crash? They charge for the sun-bunks. Ain’t that the screw?”

  His gut clenched, but he waved a hand as if the whole thing meant nothing. He grabbed his bag with the samples and headed for the elevators.

  After a quick stop at the lab, the elevators opened into CoVIn’s extraordinary lobby. Marble floors were carpeted with handwoven rugs. Glass stairs spiraled up three floors of shopping and dining before the more sedate businesses and apartments began. The storefronts were unreal—a high-end jeweler with walls made from geodes, a bank with an enclosed glass waterfall, a dry-goods store with a faux saloon exterior and swinging doors. It was like entering adult Disneyland… or what he assumed Disneyland was like.

  Years ago, Javier had proclaimed that he would “make it,” with “it” as some undefined idea of wealth and class. He’d been doing all right for himself with grit and caffeine, until a one-night stand with the woman walking along beside him. Now, ready or not, this world of complete privilege was his. All he had to do was let other people bleed for him.

  In all his determination to prove himself, he’d never thought about the consequences of flipping to the other side of the highway, of knowing that resources were finite and he had more than his share. Even for humans, life was like this; the fangs merely made the relationship down the economic food chain more literal. It didn’t sit well with him.

  He headed to the bank of glass elevators that went up to the apartments. “How many beds are there?”

  Emma didn’t look at him as she strode into the elevator car, but her voice was cheerful as always, bubbling lightly over her words. “Oh, just one, but no big. You know vampires all pile in—even guys sleep next to each other, and I ain’t just talking Charlie and Vince. We’re all so dead in the morning, it don’t matter who you’re next to. It won’t be an issue.”

  He crossed his arms as he leaned against the glass and watched the lobby shrink below them. Vampires funneled out of the shops and bars in the final rush before dawn. In less than an hour, every one of them would be sun-sleeping, as they called it, unwakeable as the dead while their bodies repaired from any damage done during the day.

  Dead or no, climbing into bed with Emma wasn’t his idea of “no big.” Alone in the elevator heading up to his bedroom, the image of her golden hair on a pillow next to his spinning brain, he couldn’t help wanting to touch her. His hand flexed, and he clenched it back. “How are you not furious with me?”

  The car went so quiet he finally looked at her. She blinked, her blue eyes squinched in what looked like genuine confusion. She was good at manufacturing sincerity, so good he wouldn’t know the difference. Her old job had relied on tricking men into believing what they wanted to, and she’d already done it to him twice. He turned, leaning his back against the wall, arms tight against him as he tried to assess what she was really thinking. For the millionth time in life, he wished he wasn’t so woefully bad at reading people. He should just assume everyone was lying to him at all times. It worked out better that way.

  She met his gaze, eyes clear and intense. “Why would I be mad at you? What reason on this planet would I possibly have? You ain’t been nothing but good to me.” Her gaze went to the floor as her own palms squeezed into tight balls and released. “Better’n I deserve. I ain’t exactly been a model sire. You didn’t even want to be immortal to begin with.” The elevator continued silently as her gaze lifted from looking at the floor to something outside the glass. Still not at him.

  “I like being immortal. Who wouldn’t like that?”

  Her eyebrows rose as if she found that surprising. “Vince. You know Charlie’s gonna die with him eventually, right? It’s the trendy new thing, vampires dying for love.”

  He’d heard. People only had a fifty-fifty shot at turning into a vampire, even if the procedure was done perfectly. Vince, because of a medical condition, had less chance than that. He and Charlie had decided not to risk it.

  Javier, on the other hand, had been on the verge of dying, bleeding out from a gut wound. Emma had saved his life—or his existence, anyway, as vampires were technically dead—by turning him. “I like being here, walking around and doing things, thank you very much. Gives me more time to make something of myself.” So, yes, at first he’d been pissed, and he still couldn’t stand biting people. But an immortal opportunity to transition from street kid to someone who could contribute to society? He would happily use all the time he co
uld get.

  She nodded, offering him the tiniest of smiles. “Well, that’s very good to know, but it still don’t explain why I’d be mad at you.”

  Maybe he shouldn’t have spoken. But he needed to get this out in the open if they were going to work together as fledgling and sire, something he was, against his better judgment, actually considering. “I meant that twice now we’ve…” What word did he use? He’d thought they’d been intimate. But she’d faked her responses. In her eyes, he was no better than a john, just another man using her. How did she not loathe him?

  “Javi? Help me out here with some plain speak. Twice what?”

  The elevator slowed down on a floor that wasn’t on the key card. He turned to the dark doors, his emotions a mix of aggravation and relief, and waited for someone to come through and halt any chance of discussion. Maybe that was for the better.

  “Twice now…” she muttered. Of course, an audience didn’t stop Emma’s mouth. “Twice now you’ve had your hands on my hoo-ha. That what we talking about?”

  Javier stiffened in embarrassment as Cash Geirson halted with one foot across the doorway. The general’s downcast expression quirked up. “Interrupting something, am I? Excellent.” He stepped in. His eyes were bloodshot, and his gait unsteady.

  “Are you drunk?” Javier couldn’t help asking. “I thought you were talking to Modron about the new developments with the zombies.”

  “I was.” He punched the top floor on the wall panel. “Then I was drinking.”

  “Cash!” a female voice called from down the hallway.

  He grimaced as he tucked the front tails of his shirt back in, but his expression was pleasant by the time he turned back around.

  A blonde in six-inch heels clacked down the hallway at a speed humans shouldn’t try in stilts like those.

  The too-obvious scene made Javier uncomfortable, but Emma tipped her head, looking devilishly amused as the woman handed Cash a piece of paper and turned around. He laid it on her back and signed it.