Kiss Me, I'm Undead

by Tasha L Driver

  Jorge’s body slumped to the ground. I slid off of it, looking around for Freddie. He really was quick. All three men were down, and he was healed and unharmed. I went to him, about to wipe my mouth to kiss him, but he stopped my hand. We dove for each other, bloody and feral, kissing without any worries because the gunfight was over downstairs. I don’t know how, but I knew deep in my soul that my army had won. Because there was no other possible outcome. My vampire and I had beat the final boss and his minions. I had overcome my fear and taken down one of the men that preyed on a vulnerable version of me. The other was dead, and I’d used his blood for the strength I needed to defeat my own big bad.

  I heard a whimper and reluctantly pulled away from Freddie, turning around to face my mother. I did wipe my mouth then, seeing her frightened wide eyes take me in. The little girl she didn’t want was gone, and in her place was a monster. No, not a monster, but something that didn’t have to take shit from anyone ever again.

  I went to her and removed the rag from around her mouth as Freddie sliced through the ropes that bound her with his claws. She stuttered then finally said, “K-K-Kiera?”

  “It’s me, Mom.”

  “What...what did you do to your beautiful hair?” For fucks sake. Those were her first words to me.

  I sighed. “It’s over, Mom. You can go home.”

  I started to walk away, Freddie quickly joining me, when I heard her stand and rush toward me. “Wait! Kiera. Please come home. I’ve missed you.”

  I turned back around slowly. “Have you really?” I didn’t think she’d even thought of me these last seven years.

  “I have. And I want you to come home. Roger’s gone now. I’ll be all alone.” So that was it. Codependent Mommy didn’t want me, she just wanted someone. Anyone.

  I blew out a harsh breath. “I love you, Mom.” The sight of her gushing over that almost made me take it back. “But did you not just see me eat that motherfucker?” She must have been in some sort of shock as well. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of a zombie. Besides, I have another family now. One that I chose, and they chose me. I love you because you’re my mother. That will always be it. I don’t have to like you, and I’ll never go back home with you.” I tossed, “You go home, alone, and try to have a good life now,” over my shoulder as I walked away from her and her shit forever.

  You Can Still Call Me Kayla.

  “Hey, Mama G! Can I get a Modelo over here?”

  “Boy, just because I let your underage ass in here tonight doesn’t mean I’m serving you.”

  I sat at the rounded corner of the bar top, Miguel to my left, Jill to my right. Gina and Frank stood side by side behind the bar serving drinks to everyone except Miguel. Jack was also there, along with Charli and Robert, who’d been caught up on most of the details of the last few weeks. Jack and Frank kept the story of Freddie and I to themselves, thankfully. I’m not sure they really even believed it, even though they knew we went upstairs with no weapons and came down covered in blood.

  Jack and his friends busted two Xolotls and a couple of young boys looking to get in good with the cartel by picking up guns and fighting a fight that wasn’t theirs. Frank took another to the Puerto Rican bosses. He thought the guy might give up information on what Jorge was doing in Chicago other than trying to kill me. They were definitely up to something, and it had the Puerto Ricans riled up something fierce. Frank also arranged for my mother to get home safely. I’m glad someone did it.

  Just over a week had passed since that night. Gina had recovered well enough and got the all-clear from the doctors. She was supposed to be on bed rest, but the tough broad wasn’t going to pay any attention to that.

  The bar was going to reopen. But tonight we had something different to celebrate. My freedom. I was officially no longer a state witness, and my immunity stood because of all the information that I was able to give the feds to close dozens of cases.

  I was a new woman.

  Gina brought a red velvet sheet cake from out of the fridge behind the bar. It read, “Congratulations! Whoever you are.” Everyone laughed and cheered.

  Jill nudged me. “So, are we supposed to call you Kiera now?”

  “Ring. Ring. I'm sorry, the old Kiera can't come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, 'cause she's dead!" I laughed hysterically then stopped when I realized that no one else was. Jill, Gina, Charli, and Robert looked at me like I’d just spoken Russian. Miguel, Frank, and Jack looked stricken with both surprise and admonishment.

  “Sorry.” I blushed. “I guess you all don’t listen to Taylor Swift.”

  Jill smacked her mouth. “See! I should have known that was some White girl shit.”

  Everyone shook their heads and waited patiently as Gina took out a knife and started to cut the cake.

  “Uh, wait!” I interrupted. “Do you have any candles, Mama?”

  “Yeah, what do you need them for?”

  “It’s my birthday.”

  Gina held the knife in the air with one hand—Frank narrowly dodged it when it got too close to his arm—and put her other hand on her hip. “Little girl, it is not. I got your paperwork in the office.”

  “That’s all fake, remember? This is my real birthday.” It was fitting. My old lives, both my youth and time with Jorge, were over, and I got to start a brand-new life. “And when you sing to me, call me Kayla. That’s the person who has this family, and that’s who I want to be.”

  I was hugged on both sides by Jill and Miguel. Gina beamed a smile at me across the bar. It was the happiest moment of my life.

  After I blew out my candles, Miguel told Gina that he brought me a special Bloody Mary mix from the supermercado and asked her to pour some vodka into it. She thought it smelled weird, but did so anyway. It was my first drink in years, and I felt safe enough to drink it.

  We drank, talked, and laughed for hours. Frank had turned on music and asked me to dance. He finally taught me to step. I felt like a true Southsider then.

  At eleven, it was time to go. Gina rushed us out so she could clean up and be back early in the morning to smoke some ribs. Jill offered me a ride, and Miguel asked to walk me home, but neither got a chance to.

  When we exited Gina’s bar, Freddie was waiting outside. He and I hadn’t spoken since that night because he still hadn’t given me the answers I was looking for. I wanted to be turned into a vampire. He left wrapped pieces of Leo in my fridge, and I supplemented that with meat I got from Miguel, but I didn’t want to continue being a zombie or whatever. I didn’t mind aging as long as I didn’t have to kill another person to survive. I’d killed two already, both out of necessity, and that was enough.

  I took the fact that he was waiting there as a sign he was finally ready to talk.

  I’d get my answers tonight.

  Only Bad Guys, 'Kay?

  “Happy birthday,” Freddie said with that megawatt smile on his face.

  “You heard that?”

  “I hear lots of things.” He held out his elbow for me. I took it as we began to walk home. “I’m just sorry I didn’t have time to get you a present. Can I kill someone to make up for it?”

  “No!” I snapped “None of that. You have to stop, Freddie.”

  I expected an argument, but I didn’t get one. “You’re right. I’m being careless anyway. The hunters will find me.”

  I stopped short. “Wait. There are hunters?”

  “Yes.”

  “As in vampire hunters?”

  “Yes. Well, they hunt other things, too, but those beings are even harder to kill than vampires.”

  I was dumbfounded. There was so much he hadn’t told me. So much I needed to learn. I had a million questions to ask but couldn’t wrap my brain around where to start.

  “Kayla, do you remember the night that you tried to follow me?” I did, vividly, so I nodded. “There was a hunter out that night. He was investigating the site where I’d killed the man who shot your friend. Who tried to kill you.”

  “I
knew I’d seen someone there.”

  “Yes, I avoided his detection, but when you got too close, I had to come back and get you out of there. They have ways of detecting familiars.

  I looked up at him wide-eyed. “What would happen to me if I was found?”

  “They’d decapitate you.”

  I smacked his chest with my free hand. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  He looked apologetic, but those puppy-dog eyes weren’t going to get to me this time. Now, my life was in danger. Again.

  “There’s a lot I have to tell you. I’ve been trying to figure out where to start. Which parts are most important.”

  “It’s all important, Freddie.”

  “I know, but you have to remember that this is 180 years of information.”

  “Wow. That’s how old you are? You’re fucking ancient.”

  “There are those much, much older than I am. You can call them ancient all you want because they literally are. I’m still a baby.”

  We walked in silence for a block. He was probably trying to work out in his head what to tell me and was just processing it all. Finally he spoke. “I was a familiar.”

  Stunned, all I could say was, “What?”

  He smiled nostalgically. “I was a farm boy in Germany who’d been sold by my family at only eight years old as an indentured servant to a family with a bigger farm. They treated me horribly. They kept me in rags. Fed me infrequently. Whipped me when I didn’t produce a big enough basket of crop during harvest. I hated them, and I endured that for twenty years.

  “One night, a man came up the road. He looked rich so they were, of course, kind to him. He said that his carriage had been marauded. He barely escaped with his life, but he was lost and far from home. They offered him dinner and a place to stay until they could carry him to his destination in the morning. He ate them for dinner instead. Slaughtered the entire family and drank their blood. He killed the servants as well. But when he bit me, I thanked him for ending my torturous life. Something about that thank you made him stop short of killing me.”

  Then it clicked, “So you were made in the same way as me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you can change me as well.”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean ‘no’, Hammerdick? If that vampire changed you into a vampire, you can change me.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I told you it wasn’t that easy. I remained his familiar for many years, eating the flesh of those he drank from. I was, how you say, fat and happy. He fell in love with me, but I didn’t reciprocate his feelings. He turned me into a vampire but told me to leave. He warned me that I wasn’t exactly like him. I was made while he was born that way. I would have to keep to the night because the sun would burn my skin and that I could make a familiar, but I’d never have the ability to turn anyone into a true vampiric companion like he wanted from me. I think that turning me and sending me away was a punishment instead of a gift.”

  “That’s actually...sad.”

  “Yes, it is. But it’s not the end. I followed him for weeks. I think he knew, but he never did anything about it. Not until one night in Hamburg. I lost track of him until he grabbed me from behind. He hid me in an alleyway and told me that the Luminosi were after him for killing indiscriminately. He didn’t want me harmed or found.”

  Well, color me confused. “Who are the Luminosi? The hunters?”

  “No. They are the monsters the hunters hunt. But they also make the rules of their world of monsters. And the main rules for vampires is to refrain from drinking human blood and never ever to make any more vampires or familiars. He had broken all three and was sentenced to death.

  “He left me hiding in that alley, and I never saw him again. I smelled lots of non-humans that night, and I knew when he was gone. Our bond broke, and I felt it in my soul.” I looked up at Freddie’s saddened face. I knew that he said he didn’t love the vampire back, but it was clear that he did, just not in a romantic way.

  “I’m sorry.” It was all I could say.

  He physically shook then, scattering old memories into the softly blowing wind. “It’s long over now. The point is, I can’t turn you. Vampires that are created rather than born simply can’t do it. Finding a sympathetic vampire in the Luminosi is the best chance you have.”

  “So, wait. We have to go to Germany?”

  “No, I tried tracking them long ago and found out they were based somewhere near here. But Chicago is as far as I got.”

  We’d arrived at our building. Freddie let go of me to open the front door, and I pulled out my keys to unlock the security entrance. I invited him inside my apartment, and we sat down on my old couch. Me processing, him allowing me to do so.

  Finally, I asked, “So, how do you go about finding them?”

  He tsked. “Haven’t you figured it out? I haven’t been able to find them in sixty years. But I bet you can.”

  I shifted my position on the couch to face him. “Me? How?”

  “You are a smart girl. Smarter than me. Look at how you solved your own mystery.”

  “It almost solved itself. I did nothing.”

  “Bullshit!” Wow, I rarely heard him curse. He was so proper. “You had a conundrum in front of you, and you did everything you could to decipher it, including calling in your friends. They were a great help. Especially the butcher. He knows many secrets, and he’s not afraid of monsters. He makes the perfect ally.”

  This was true. My little Miguel was as smart and connected as they come. “So you want Miguel and I to find these Luminosi people?”

  “Yes. Along with the help of the cop and the mafia guy.”

  I hated to get them involved in my shit again but not as much as I hated being a fucking zombie. Speaking of which... “We need to discuss the food situation.”

  “Yes. That is important.”

  “How long can I live on meat from the store?”

  “Days. Maybe weeks if supplemented with human flesh. But there will be times when you lose strength and feel drained. Your body will decompose from the inside out if you go too long without eating from a human.”

  That sucked ass. It was time to make a tough arrangement that had been spinning around in my head for days. “Here’s the deal. You get to drink and I get to eat. But only really, truly bad guys. I’m talking murderers, pimps that beat their prostitutes, and dealers that sell meth to kids. Those types of fuckfaces. You got me?”

  Freddie leaned in close, close enough to kiss me, but that wasn’t what I wanted from his lips right then. “Darling. We live in Chicago. This will be easy. You have a deal.”

  “Just a couple more things.”

  “Yes, my love.”

  “One, I want my goddamned knife back, pronto. And two, if you hypnotize me again, I will cut your fucking balls off with it.”

  Good. I Was Getting Hungry.

  Two months later...

  The buzzer sounded at my door. Now who could this be? It was eight at night, and I really wasn’t expecting anyone. Freddie was in my bedroom redoing the closet. He was making it into a walk-in and building shelves on three of the walls. Why? So I could have space for all the shoes he kept buying me. Real ones. I was a special, spoiled bitch.

  I tried the intercom to the door, but the person on the other side just mumbled. Opening the door to peek out, I saw a young Latina girl of about fourteen or fifteen. Who the hell was this? My curiosity buzzed her in.

  She walked up to me looking very nervous. “Are you Kayla?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  She blew out a huge breath of relief. “You don’t look psycho or dangerous at all.”

  I widened my eyes. “Now, why on earth would you be looking for me if you thought I was psycho or dangerous.”

  “Because I need your help.”

  Those were the words that got me. I let her in and offered her water. I wish I could give her something to eat because she looked frail, but all I had in the fridge was a lim
e and the tenderloin from a goat. Still, I tried to make her as comfortable as possible and told her to sit at the counter. She was tiny, maybe a hundred pounds and under five feet.

  “What’s your name, honey?”

  She looked as if she wasn’t going to say at first, then she gave in. “It’s Mariana. Some people just call me Mari.”

  “Well, Mari. I’m glad to meet you, but I’m not sure how I can help you.”

  “See,” she blew out a breath, “there’s this butcher at the Supermercado Mas Grande up the street. He’s been talking you up real good. Says you’s a bad ass. I overheard him tell this dude that he’d better stop forcing homeless girls to work for him doing...you know...or Kayla was going to put him six feet under like she did that L.A. cartel boss that had come to The Chi. The guy laughed, but after he left I asked the butcher if it was true. If you’d really taken out a cartel boss. He said ‘yeah.’ I told him I needed someone to find my sister.”

  Shit. This wasn’t what I expected when I woke up today. “What happened to her?”

  Mari fiddled with her hands looking guilty. “This guy told me about a party at this house on 43rd. He was cute, and he had this badass brand on his arm of a Mayan dog, you know. I thought he was cool as fuck, and I was happy that he was talking to me. He thought I was seventeen.” She paused looking around.

  “Go on,” I urged.

  “Well, my sister, Veronica, didn’t want me to go, but I insisted, so she came with. They were giving out drinks. I took one, but didn’t drink it because all the girls were acting stupid drunk. I didn’t want to look like them in front of the guy. But Vero, she drank hers.

  “After an hour, everyone passed out. Only the girls, I mean. The guys started grabbing them and taking them to a room somewhere. They asked why I wasn’t out yet, and I got scared. I tried to wake Vero up, but she was out of it, and she was so heavy. I tried to move her, but couldn’t. Some big dude came at me with a needle. I dodged him. I crawled under a table and, when he tried to get under there to grab me, I ran out the door. I just ran. I left Vero there. The next day, I went back with the police, but the place was completely empty. They thought I’d made it all up as a prank.”