by Mairsile
November 17, 2016
da Polenta Ranch, Texas
When Lilah came out of her bedroom late the next evening, her hair was still wet from the shower, and she had buttoned her shirt wrong. “Dorothea,” Lilah said in a whining voice as she opened the medicine cabinet in the kitchen. “I feel like shit. I think I’ve got the flu. Do you have any flu medicine?”
“Sí,” Dorothea said as she washed the last dish and set it to the side. “Back behind the laxantes.”
“Ew, seriously?”
Dorothea smiled at her as she dried her hands with a towel. “Are you running a fever?” she asked, feeling Lilah’s forehead.
“I don’t think so,” Lilah replied.
She looked at Lilah intently and frowned. “Your eyes are bloodshot and you’re very pale. And you’ve been sleeping more than normal. I think you’re right; it’s probably the flu.” I hope that’s all it is.
“Well, I don’t have time for the flu. I’ve got to check on the mares and—” She heard Beulah laughing in the hallway and suddenly, in a fraction of a second, Ludovico was standing in front of her, with Cristaldo beside him and Beulah standing behind them.
“Who bit you?” Ludovico demanded to know.
Lilah took a cautious step back, and Dorothea wrapped her arm around her in a protective way.
“Is Nikki back?” Beulah asked.
Lilah’s eyes lit up. “Nikki? Have you heard from her?”
“No. Have you?” she asked.
Shaking her head, Lilah frowned. “Why would I ask you if… okay, I don’t know what you guys are riled up about, but I feel like crap, so if you’ll excuse me.”
Beulah patted Ludovico’s shoulder as she edged past him. She gave him a look that said she would handle it. He frowned, but took a step back. Beulah put her hands on Lilah’s shoulders. “Honey lamb, did someone, a vampire, bite you?”
Lilah looked shocked. “What? No. Why would you think that?”
“Because we can smell another vampire on you and you have all the indicators.”
“What indicators?”
“You’re terribly pale, and your eyes are bloodshot,” Beulah explained.
“You’ve never had the flu before, have you?” Lilah quipped.
“Bear with me just one second,” Beulah said, then leaned close and began sniffing.
Lilah took a step back, but Beulah followed her. “Uh, Beulah?”
Beulah held up Lilah’s left hand, sniffed it and rubbed her thumb over the inside of her wrist. Her fangs extended as she growled.
Lilah jerked her hand back and rubbed her wrist. “What is wrong with you people?”
The three vampires formed a huddle and talked in subdued tones that Lilah couldn’t hear and it irritated her. She knew they were talking about her and she had every right to know what they were saying.
“Uh, hello? Somebody want to tell me what’s going on?”
Leonard walked in from the back porch and stopped when he saw everyone in the kitchen. “Hey,” he said to no one in particular. “What’s going on?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, Dad. They’re acting strange, even for them.”
“Lilah, your manners,” Dorothea reprimanded.
“Do you remember something biting you, honey lamb?” Beulah asked.
Lilah looked at her left wrist, then back at Beulah. “Yeah, a few days ago. When I woke up in the field after I was sleepwalking. There was a bug bite on my wrist. Why?”
Beulah looked back at Ludovico, her eyes anxious, her lips trembling. His look of understanding helped her mask her face before she turned back to Lilah. “Let’s everyone go into the living room and talk, all right?” Beulah suggested, but didn’t wait for an answer. The three immortals walked into the living room and the humans had no choice but to follow.
Again, Ludovico let Beulah take the lead as he walked over to the bar and poured himself a drink. He didn’t offer anyone else one as he carried it to the armchair and sat down. Cristaldo frowned at him and proceeded to pour his own drink.
“We couldn’t help but notice how pale your skin was,” Beulah said, holding up her arm beside Lilah’s in comparison. They were the same pale white color. “I can hear your rapid heartbeat, and the way you squint your eyes in the light. Lilah, you better sit down for this.”
Lilah shook her head. “Just tell me already, because you’re really beginning to scare the shit out of me.”
“What is it? What’s going on?” Leonard asked nervously.
“The girl has been poisoned,” Ludovico blurted out, ignoring his wife’s furrowed brow. “Somebody bit her and injected her with the vampire poison.”
“I don’t understand. What the hell is vampire poison?” Lilah asked in exasperation.
“It’s a bacteria strain in the blood of some immortals that is poisonousness to humans,” Beulah said sympathetically.
“Poisonousness how?” Leonard demanded. “How do we cure her?”
Beulah creased her brow and sighed. “I’m afraid that it’s too late for a conventional cure.”
Lilah’s knees buckled and she fell onto the couch. She was too stunned to even cry. “So, what, I’m going to die? Again?”
“No,” Beulah was quick to answer. “No, you’re not dying.” It’s a fate worse than death. “Your blood has been altered by the bacteria. You’re not a vampire, but you’re not completely human now, either.”
“¡Oh Dios mío!” Dorothea exclaimed and sat down beside Lilah, grasping her shoulders.
“Damn it,” Leonard bellowed. “What does that mean?”
Ludovico set down his glass and looked up at Leonard, who was pacing back and forth. “It means she will always be weak, her bones will ache and her eyes will burn in the sunlight, and all of those things will cause her to become nocturnal.”
Lilah drew her breath in sharply, burying her face into her hands. Rocking back and forth, she began to sob until it became uncontrollable.
Dorothea cried with her as she rubbed Lilah’s back. “Pobre niño.”
“There has to be something we can do,” Leonard insisted.
“There is another option,” Beulah said softly, looking over her shoulder at Cristaldo.
Lilah jumped up, her face streaked with tears, and grabbed Beulah’s hand. “Please. Do something. Anything,” she pleaded.
“Let me tell you first, child. You may not like it,” Beulah said, pulling her hands away and taking a step back. “You only have two options. Stay as you are and grow weaker, or you could be turned and become immortal.”
“A vampire?” Lilah asked disbelievingly. “You want me to have to suck people’s blood in order to live? Hell no!”
“I’m sorry, honey lamb, but that’s your only alternative,” Beulah countered.
“Why is this happening to me?” Lilah asked as she slumped back on the couch.
Beulah sat down on the arm of the chair Ludovico was sitting in and took his hand in hers. Lilah’s eyes haunted her as if it were her mother asking the question.
“We don’t know why, but it’s obvious now that Irinushka has taken an interest in you,” Ludovico stated, meeting Lilah’s worried eyes. “At first I thought she was after the immortal leaders, and we had a contingency plan for that.”
“Yes, but that didn’t happen,” Cristaldo joined in. “She sent kamikazes instead, supposedly with a message to give us.”
“And all the messages have centered on you, Lilah,” Ludovico said. “Your friend’s death. Your death. Nikki’s encounter with the Russian. And now this.”
“What in the hell is her game?” Leonard railed. “Lilah has nothing of value that she would want.”
“She wants something, I just can’t figure out what,” Cristaldo inserted.
“For one thing, she wants Lilah to become an immortal, but to what end, I don’t know,” Ludovico said.
Beulah shook her head. “Why do you think that, dumplin’?”
Lilah sat up, curious about the answer also.
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br /> “The vampire could have killed her anywhere, but instead he made sure we would witness it,” Cristaldo offered.
“Yes, but more than that, he made sure that Nikki was there,” Ludovico countered.
“And by Nikki reviving her, Irinushka knew that she would have to be locked up.” Beulah’s eyes darted back and forth as she examined every possibility. “She drove her away. But, why didn’t she just kill Nikki in Switzerland?”
“Indeed. Which leads us back to why did she have Lilah infected with the poison?” Ludovico asked.
“I don’t understand,” Lilah finally joined in. “What good will it do her if I’m a vampire?”
“That’s the part that we don’t know, Lilah,” Ludovico answered. “She could have turned you after Nikki left if she was what was stopping her. But I don’t think she was.”
Lilah tried to think rationally, tried to work the problem as if it were a malady that one of her horses had. Suddenly the answer popped into her head. “She didn’t turn me herself because, A- she has this disease herself so she couldn’t, or B- she wants one of you to do it.”
Beulah stood up excitedly. “Yes, but she knows that my husband and I won’t turn you because of Nikki. She loves you and if Ludovico sired you, it would make you Nikki’s sister. Unlike Irinushka, we are civilized people and would never do that.”
Everyone’s head turned to the only other immortal in the room.
“So I guess that makes me the lucky one,” Cristaldo quipped.
“Or me,” Vince said as he walked into the living room with a roguish grin on his face.
November 18, 2016
Barcelona El Prat Airport, Spain
Nikki hid in the trash bin beside the wall outside of terminal one, facing the American Airlines plane on the strip at the Barcelona El Prat Airport. It was just after ten p.m. as she watched people coming and going, moving luggage and using lifts to replenish the airplane that Nikki planned to board. Suddenly the lid to the bin creaked open, and an empty soda bottle came flying in, hitting her in the head. But it wasn’t the swelling welt on her head that disconcerted her, it was the smell of another immortal.
Nikki slipped out of the bin and smelled the air, irritated at the stench that filled her nostrils before she could focus on the immortal. She was downwind from the vampire, but she could see that it was an older man with gray hair, obviously turned in his sixties. She could hear the man’s thoughts and understood enough Latin to translate the Catalan language that he was thinking in. The immortal was thinking it was time to fly to Hawaii before it got too cold. His thoughts revealed that the older man spent his winters in Hawaii. He had a thing for young, sun-kissed Hawaiian girls wearing bikinis, doing the hula dance.
“Is he an Air element?” Nikki asked herself, giddy with excitement. She watched as the man smelled the air and then turned toward her. Nikki did not move and used every ounce of willpower she had to calm her tormented mind.
“I’m not here to fight you, old man,” Nikki said in Spanish as the man came closer.
“American Spanish is a horrible language,” the vampire challenged.
“I much prefer the pure Latin that you speak,” Nikki groveled, digging her fingernails into the palm of her hands to distract her mind with pain.
The old man smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Three
November 19, 2016
da Polenta Ranch, Texas
Lilah squealed and ran into Vince’s arms. “I’m so glad to see you, Vince.”
“I’m glad to be seen,” Vince replied. “It’s good to see you alive, too.”
“How are you still alive?” Ludovico asked. “You should be dead.”
Beulah glared at Ludovico before saying, “I think what he means to say is it’s wonderful to have you back, Vince. We’re just surprised to see you.”
“Thanks, it’s really good to be back, and I don’t know why I didn’t die. I flew off to a cave I had spotted in the next county and waited to die. And for a while I was sure I was a goner. But, then, after some intense pain and burning, I woke up tonight feeling perfectly fit, and here I am.”
Ludovico got up and walked over to Vince, who set Lilah back on her feet and waited for his sire’s approval. Ludovico pointed at Vince’s shirt, and Vince immediately stripped off all his clothes and stood naked in front of all of them. Lilah quickly turned her head away. Dorothea shielded her eyes as if something was being thrown at her, but even so, she peeked between her fingers at Vince’s muscular, sinewy form. Beulah had seen it all before, Cristaldo just laughed, and Leonard shook his head and walked over to the whiskey bottle and poured himself a drink.
Ludovico walked around Vince, poking him here and there, then he stood in front of him and inhaled deeply. The wound was almost completely healed, with only a deep pink patch where the gaping hole had been. Ludovico cocked his head and creased his brow.
“What is it, dumplin’?” Beulah asked.
“I’m not sure,” Ludovico replied. “Cristaldo, take a whiff and tell me what y’all think?”
Cristaldo sneered at Vince as he walked over and inhaled deeply.
Vince, a proud man who ordinarily would have no problem standing nude in front of women, was beginning to feel exposed in front of the two men who were sniffing him like dogs sniff a fire hydrant before they peed on it.
“I smell the toxin in his blood, but there’s something else, a sweetness,” Cristaldo said as if he were describing a fine wine.
“That’s what I thought,” Ludovico agreed. “But how?”
“Oh, fiddle dee-dee. Let me smell,” Beulah commanded, swatting the two men on their shoulders so they would move. She leaned in and sniffed Vince’s chest, then she licked it and flicked her tongue. Vince flinched, but there was nothing sexual in Beulah’s approach. She had the scent and knew she had smelled it before. She looked over at Lilah. “It’s her blood,” she deduced, rather proud of herself.
“You defiled my daughter?” Leonard moved faster than the immortals thought possible for a human, and he grabbed Vince by the neck, digging his fingers into Vince’s throat.
Although Vince could have easily shoved the human away, he remained steadfast and allowed Leonard to think he was in control. It wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart, though. Vince didn’t want to hurt Lilah’s father.
“Daddy, no. I swear he never touched me,” Lilah was quick to explain.
Leonard glared at her. “Then how is your blood inside of him?”
“I think I know,” Beulah said as her mind flashed back to the night of the attack. “Leonard, you probably don’t remember, but you held both Lilah and Vince that night and your shirt was covered in blood. Your daughter’s blood. Some of it must have gotten on Vince… or rather, in Vince.”
Beulah was right, Leonard didn’t remember. The night was a blur except for the one horrible realization that his daughter had died. Leonard sighed and released Vince.
“Do you think that’s what cured me?” Vince asked as he quickly climbed back into his blue jeans. He saw Lilah’s gaping eyes and he winked at her.
“Oh!” Lilah realized she had been staring at his nakedness, and again, turned her head away.
“I don’t see how, but then, I don’t see any other answer, either,” Ludovico said, shaking his head as he sat back down in the armchair.
Pulling his shirt back on, Vince asked, “Is Nikki okay? She’s in Switzerland, right?”
Lilah’s eyes fell as she glanced over at Beulah. She didn’t have the strength nor the heart to tell him.
“We don’t know where Nikki’s at, Vince,” Beulah explained. “Irinushka displaced her guards long enough to let her get away.”
“And that’s another thing. Not only did the Russian bitch not kill her,” Cristaldo inserted. “But she helped her escape.”
“What would she gain from that?” Vince asked, confused by the fluctuation. “Niko would make a beeline straight back to Lilah, even if she were completely nuts.”
“She would?” Lilah asked shyly. She had hoped, but Vince’s validation made it possible to believe.
“Are you kidding? She’s crazy for you… uh… no pun intended.”
“Look, y’all. We need to solve one problem at a time,” Ludovico ordered. “And the problem at hand is what to do about Lilah.”
“Excuse me?” Lilah asked indignantly.
Ludovico grunted and took a sip of his whiskey, then said, “You’re walking around with vampire poison in your bloodstream. That makes you a problem. For yourself and for other vampires.”
Lilah, who was more upset with having to face the truth than with being thought of as a problem, had no choice but to calm her anger and concentrate on what he was saying.
“Wait.” Vince held up his hand. “She was poisoned? How? When?”
“It’s a long story that I’ll tell you later, Vince,” Beulah answered and then turned to Lilah. “He’s right, honey lamb. You have two options… well, three really.”
“And what are those?” Lilah asked, already knowing what the answer would be.
“If you do nothing, if you stay as you are, you will be unable to go out in the sun and will feel exhausted all the time.”
Vince looked at her as if for the first time. Her gaunt cheeks and vapid skin made her look like human death. Again. That is no way to live.
“You can finish the transformation by drinking the blood of a vampire and become one yourself. But you will still carry the poison inside of you, and infect the humans that you feed from.”
Lilah’s forehead wrinkled as her eyebrows raised at the thought of drinking blood, but then the thought of poisoning another human being with the curse made her eyes well up with tears. “What’s the third option?” she asked meekly.
“An immortal completely drains you of all your blood, which is the only way to pull the poison out, and replaces it with their own.”
“Lilah, I know we only just met a few days ago, but if I might offer an opinion?” Cristaldo said as he sat down beside her on the couch.
“Sure,” Lilah replied distractedly.
“You know enough about us now to know that we are not insensitive to the humans. We don’t attack and murder them on a whim. In fact, some of our best friends are human.”