Waxing Darkness
By Jose Luis Solórzano
Copyright 2012 Jose Luis Solórzano
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ISBN 978-1-4658-0029-9
For Chelsea, who has always been my inspiration to do great things such as this novel.
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think i know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
- Robert Frost
Chapter One: Accidents
To find where it starts,
it was the meeting of them.
Fate’s cruel game is played.
One thing Luis Medina liked about the library was that it was quiet. No one seemed to mind him as he browsed through the shelves or reading small inserts from novels at his leisure. He would see the occasional summer school college student struggling to find a book that he or she desperately needed to find.
One thing that Luis hated about the library was that it had no air condition and it was the end of the month of June. His black hair was dripping sweat into his meek, brown eyes. The summer heat in El Paso, Texas was brutal throughout the entire day. Luis reflected on the days when he was a kid and still lived in Los Angeles, California, where he was able to visit the beach when it was hot outside and play in the cold, ocean water.
El Paso was nowhere near an ocean. El Paso, on the other hand, did have gangs, drug dealers on every street corner, bootleggers, and the occasional shooting ever few feet.
Today made it a week that Luis had been living in this heavily populated Northeastern Texas town. His mother, a short Mexican woman named Lupe, spent the past week unpacking boxes to make sure that the new house would fit her definition of perfect. Lupe’s husband, a tall, blond Caucasian man named Joseph Medina found work as a defense attorney at a local law firm. Luis’s older sister, a blonde, brown-eyed, busty girl named Ashley was probably spending her day sleeping.
For the past few days, Luis had decided to take refuge in the public library three blocks away from where his house was located. It was a much more enjoyable experience to him than helping his mom unpack or dealing with his older sister. To Luis, this was the best place in the world to be at.
There were some times where a group of teenagers would sit across from him, quietly gossiping about their cliques and circles. Luis would sometimes decide to pretend to read his book and listen in to what they were talking about, but he never once made any kind of communication with the others around him. Making friends didn’t come easy to Luis, but that made moving away that much easier for him. There were people who would work with him for his determination and intellect, but there was nobody that Luis could really call his “friend” in Los Angeles.
Midway through the afternoon, Luis decided that he wanted to go back to the house, mostly because he was getting hungry and ran out of pocket snacks. With a five-hundred page book in his hand, he was ready to check out and return home. There was a small line of people in front of him, most of them being parents who were checking out picture books and loud animated movies for their noisy children.
A few seconds passed, and Luis felt someone bump right into his back, causing him to release his book from his arms and fall to the floor. Frantically, Luis turned around to pick up the fallen book, but it was already being handed to him by the person who bumped into him. It was a young girl, who looked to be the same age as Luis, although slightly taller than he was. She had long brown hair and her blue eyes were hidden by a pair of oval glasses. Luis couldn't help but stare at the girl as he clutched onto the book. What specifically caught his eye was the girl’s smile. The brown haired girl’s smile didn’t seem forced or plastered on, but completely natural. To him, it seemed a bit exciting, but also scary.
“Thank you,” Luis told the girl as he placed the book under his arm.
The girl simply nodded before she began picking up her own books, which were a variety of small paperbacks. Without hesitation, Luis aided the girl in picking up the books, mostly to find out why she was carrying so many.
“Err, you don’t have to do that,” The blue-eyed girl told Luis.
“It’s fine,” Luis told her without making eye contact. He flipped through one of the books briefly. On every single page were illustrations, actions, and bubbled dialogue. It was just a simple comic book to Luis. “Interesting.” Luis muttered to himself.
“It’s called a ‘manga’,” The girl told Luis in a slightly nervous voice. “It’s from Japan, but it’s been translated into English. You read it from right-to-left so the original art isn’t altered; see?”
The girl grabbed the book out of Luis’s hand and flipped it around to see the cover. It was all backwards, like she had said, and it was something that Luis found somewhat interesting. The two of them finished picking up the rest of the books and returned to their places in line. It wasn’t even ten seconds later when the young girl tapped Luis on the shoulder.
“You’re new around here, aren’t you,” The girl asked him with wide eyes.
“Uh, yeah,” Luis answered in an uneven voice. The girl didn’t stand out too much, but Luis clearly noticed that she was cute in her own right. He also wasn’t good with one-on-one conversations with others in general. His throat felt as if it had turned into sand paper. “We moved here a week ago from Los Angeles,” Luis informed her.
“Hollywood? Seriously?!” The girl’s voice had grown much louder, almost as if she were surprised. Embarrassed, she hid her face under her stack of books. In a low whisper, she asked, “Why did you move to El Paso?”
Luis had the urge to say that it wasn’t his choice to move here, but he didn’t absolutely hate El Paso. Luis was just upset that his parents cared more for his older sister than they did about him.
“My sister was accepted to the University here,” Luis informed the girl. “My parents thought that it would be best if we moved down here with her. There was no way they could have supported the two of us in two separate states, and they did NOT want her to give up on college.”
“Still, it sounds a bit unfair for you,” The girl commented as Luis reached the front of the check-out line. “What about school, and all of your friends?”
“I, um, really didn’t have any friends over there. You wouldn’t exactly call me a social person. And, I’m a pretty good student. If my credits transfer okay from my old school, I should be able to graduate in the spring.”
“Same here.” The girl’s tone grew a bit more, but cautious of not yelling again. Luis had moved aside for the girl to check out her volumes of manga. “Which school are you going to be attending?”
“I’m not sure. Whatever’s close to by our house I guess. I don’t live too far from here.”
“Montwood!” The girl looked Luis directly in the eyes and her small smile slightly widened. “You need to go to Montwood High. That’s where I’ve been going for the past three years. You need to hang out with me and my friends. A week with us, and your anti-social attitude will be a thing of the past; trust me. I’m Luna by the way.”
“I’m Luis.”
Luis didn’t wish for his conversations with Luna to end, not yet. For some reason, it was easy for him to talk to her. There was a warm, welcoming aura
around her; maybe it was her smile. The problem was that he couldn’t think of anything to talk about and the two of them were obviously leaving the library.
“Goodbye Luis,” Luna called out to him as the two of them parted ways outside of the library.
“See you later, Luna,” he responded.
Luis liked the fact that someone was paying attention to him and actually listening to him. The walk home had become much more bearable for him; Luis couldn’t even feel the heat of the sun stinging against his skin. Luis admitted to himself why it was so easy for him to talk to Luna. It was a “crush at first sight” kind of feeling, but he was sure that Luna didn’t feel the same way about him. She was the kind of girl he expected to have a boyfriend. That didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy his crush.
Even though it was scorching hot during the day, the nights in El Paso were always cool. At the downtown area, everything seemed to be a constant party, that is if you had the right amount of cash on hand. For the right price, you could get stoned, high, drunk, laid, or a combination of it all.
It was well past midnight, but it seemed like any of it was going to slow down. Inside one of the bars was a stout, middle-aged man, who was balding and drinking all of his pain away. All night long, the man drank, smoked, talked to women, and groped at every girl that passed his way.
Unfortunately for this man, he grabbed the wrong girl’s butt. Not only did she strike him hard enough to give him a black eye but her much taller (and much stronger) fiancé threw him out of the bar, which was followed by thunderous applause.
“What the hell,” The man slurred as he stumbled down the dark street. The incident at the bar had been passed around and no other place would allow him inside. This only made the man even more angry and dangerous.
“Hey,” A sweet feminine voice called from behind the man called out. “Tell me, what’s your name?”
The man turned in a very crooked fashion. He saw the girl’s silhouette and smiled. She appeared to be in her early-thirties, tall, slender, and enough of a bust for him to get a good grab.
“Drew, I think,” The man drooled as he approached the beautiful woman. She was much, much, more lovely up close; her black hair was bouncy and she oozed of his favorite scent in the world: fine alcohol. “What’s your name, beautiful?”
The slender woman bent down and kissed the man’s rough cheek. “Follow me into the ally and I’ll tell you, and maybe you’ll get something more.”
Drew followed the beautiful woman straight into the ally. He was planning out his attack; maybe he would bash her over the head and drag the body out to his car. It couldn’t have been parked too far away from where he was, right? Before he could make a reach for her, a second shadow appeared from the darkness. Like the girl, this figure was slender and was wearing a dark coat, but he could easily tell that this wasn’t another young woman.
“What the hell is this crap,” Drew yelled at the girl.
“Oh,” She said in a teasing voice. “I thought it would be a lot more fun with him around.”
“I don’t roll that way!” Drew’s voice grew louder. “Cut the crap right now; I only want you!”
“And what were you going to do to her, huh, Drew,” The young man asked, slowly approaching the short man. In the light, it was clear that the young man’s hair was pure white. His voice was also as smooth as the woman’s. “You were going to knock her out, take her to your house and make her your helpless love slave, right? You are a pathetic excuse for a human being. I know everything that you were thinking and you absolutely sicken me. How’s a small man like you suppose to even carry a woman her size to your car anyway?”
“Shut up!” Drew exclaimed at the young man. How he wished to teach this young one a swift lesson in respect.
Before anything could even happen, the tall woman was now behind Drew and swiftly snapped his neck. Drew was dead before his body could hit the floor.
“Good riddance,” The young man muttered as he kicked the corpse. “Alexis, when’s the old man supposed to get here?”
“You’re the one who can read minds, Drake,” The girl answered. “You tell me: Is he in the area?”
“I can’t read his thoughts,” Drake answered. Drake knew that Alexis was only teasing him. He was only able to read the minds of humans, nothing more.
“Well, I’m going to start dining without him, Alexis told him, giggling. “It was my kill after all.”
Alexis slowly sat down on the gravel floor, not caring about dirtying her scarlet dress that was under her coat. She studied the dead body as if it were some kind of alien creature. Alexis couldn’t believe she was once like Drew, a fragile being who could easily be manipulated.
Now, she was immortal.
Alexis was a vampire.
She was now the dominant being.
“What was this guy’s problem anyway,” Alexis asked Drake as she reached for Drew’s limp arm.
“From what I could tell, this guy was ‘celebrating’ his divorce.” Drake had a very rare power amongst vampires, but he was the only one who saw it as a curse. He had the ability to read anybody’s mind, as long as he could see that person’s face in his mind and they are a reasonable distance away from him. When it was time for him to hunt, Drake used his power to find out a person’s insecurities and exploit them. He would know every single terrible thing that they were thinking at that time. It had to be done in order to not break Alexander’s Code.
“I saw him when he walked inside the bar,” Drake continued as Alexis sipped her O-negative. “He had the look of a scum bag, but I had no idea how bad this guy was. Cheating, raping, and he had a history of arrests for multiple domestic violence charges. I wanted to go in there and just take him out right where he sat. Last week, he got news that his HIV was now beginning to spread.”
“So that’s what I taste,” Alexis added. She then stood up and pulled out a stack of blood bags. “Alexander won’t mind if I started ‘making inventory’ now, would he?”
“Speak of the devil.” Drake pointed down to the opening of the alleyway.
The figure that Drake was pointing at wasn’t at all taller than them. He did stand with great pride, but it wasn’t out of ignorance. He had lived over the span of one-hundred-and-fifty years he had earned the right to stand with so much pride.
“About time Alexander,” Alexis said.
All three of them were wearing the matching dark leather coats, but the one referred to as Alexander was the only one who was wearing the hood over his face. He moved at lightning speed to where the dead body lied. His red eyes seemed to glow, taking in everything that happened. It was Drake who filled him in on how they caught their prey.
“Good work,” was all that Alexander could say to them.
Alexander lived with a strict moral code. Even though he was a vampire, he still cared about the well fair of the human race. However, his vampire instinct to feast on the blood of humans to continue living his life was much more overpowering. For that reason, Alexander made a moral compromise with his instincts and his morals, swearing that he couldn’t just kill anyone he wanted. Innocent blood was always much sweeter than the other kind of blood they could have obtained, the blood of those who made the world a terrible place to be, those who deserved to die.
When he transformed Drake into what he was, Drake agreed to follow the Code, at first. Alexander didn’t share the same skill as Drake, so he couldn’t have known about how terrible a human’s mind can be. Slowly, Drake began to hate every human being on the planet, innocent or guilty.
“That’s all the blood I can get from this guy,” Alexis commented, placing the blood bags under her coat.
“Excellent,” Alexander proclaimed, slowly walking out of the alley. “I’ll use one of these cars to make it seem like it was all an accident.”
Drake easily picked up Drew’s corpse and followed his fearless leader. He watched as Alexander focused on a black suburban a few feet away from them and placed it in the middle o
f the street.
Smash, Alexander though as he focused on the large car in front of him.
It was like an invisible hammer was pounding against the grill of the car. Drake dropped the body in front of the car while Alexis released two blood bags around the corpse. The only way a vampire can live peacefully was in secrecy. They needed it to look like his death was a simple accident of a night of heavy drinking that had gone horribly wrong. It was good that Alexander was able to manipulate things with only a single thought. In an instant, a wire snapped inside the car and caused a series of sparks. The car was no covered with amazing flames.
“That’ll do it,” Alexander told his followers.
At once, Drake and Alexis pulled their dark hoods over their heads. Although it wasn’t the sun, the fire was enough to make their skin start to boil. Drake and Alexis followed their master down the alleyway, not wishing to be seen by any on looking spectators. Underneath each of their hoods, the only thing visible was a vampire’s eyes. Bloody red irises shined straight through the darkness, and nothing more.
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