by LM DeWalt
“But I’m such a horrible cook.”
“You’ll learn,” she said putting her arm across my shoulders and leading me toward the kitchen. “Besides, you have Kalia to help you. Trust me, that woman will be quite the doting grandmother.”
***
Alegría, Paco, and Leilani sat in the kitchen and ate the dinner Kalia prepared for them. Alegría and Leilani had hit it off from the second they saw each other, making the rest of us wish they were traveling together. Aloysius was right, however; they would be safer if they were in different places. The rest of us sat in the living room discussing plans with the newly arrived Raul and Riley. A few minutes into our discussion, the apartment door opened and Aloysius walked in, followed by Fiore and Matt. I jumped out of my seat and went to them, taking Matt’s hands in mine.
“How are you feeling?” He looked like his usual self, but I knew looks could be deceiving when it came to vampires.
“I feel great, actually.” He smiled and dropped my hands, which I noticed were the same temperature as mine. I no longer heard his irregular heart beat either. “Where are the children?”
“Umm, well…”
“Lily, please,” He shook his head and laughed. “I’m not asking because I’m hungry. I already ate. I just want to make sure they didn’t leave before I could say goodbye.”
Everyone in the room laughed except me. I dropped my head in shame and bit my lip before looking back up at him. The smile on his face told me he wasn’t offended. “I’m sorry, Matt. It’s just that, well, you now.”
“No problem. I totally understand your concern, but you have to remember that I was already part vampire. Trust me, I learned self-control a long time ago,” he explained as he crossed the room to introduce himself to the others.
The sound of plates clanking and water running interrupted the conversation that had resumed. I walked toward the kitchen and cracked the door enough to peek inside. “They are doing the dishes. Leilani is washing, Paco is drying, and Alegría is putting away.”
Kalia smiled. “They are such great children. Don’t you wish…?” She stopped talking and turned toward the window. Through the closed sheer drapes, the sun was making its descent into the horizon, painting the sky a deep orange. “What in the world?”
“What is it?” Aloysius said as he pulled the curtain aside, joined by Kalia, Fiore, and me.
“What do you see?” I asked. Leilani rushed out of the kitchen, Paco and Alegría close at her heels. Their faces had all gone white.
“All the dogs are… They are…” Leilani said as she tiptoed to the window to stand next to Aloysius.
“Barking, Leilani. The dogs are barking,” I explained filling in for the word she did not know in English. She held onto me tighter, as if her life depended on it.
“The dogs are barking,” Pierce repeated. “Is that a problem?”
“That usually precedes an earthquake. Hopefully it will just be a minor tremor,” Aloysius explained. He looked at Leilani with concern in his eyes. “It will be ok, Leilani. We are all here. Nothing to worry about.”
Just as they stepped away from the window and back toward the seating area, a rumble passed through the room. No one said a word as we looked at each other. For the next few seconds, an eerie quiet filled the room as no one moved a muscle except for their heads. I turned to Christian and went to reach for him as the room went into total and complete chaos.
The rumbling sound was replaced by screaming as the children ran to hold onto an adult, zigzagging to avoid falling objects. The apartment door flew open and Giovanni ran inside, followed by Vicente and Mauricio. “Everybody ok?” Giovanni yelled over the screaming children. I wasn’t even positive I wasn’t screaming myself as I struggled to hold onto Leilani and reach Christian at the same time. The chandelier over the coffee table crashed onto the glass sending shards every which way. Beth screamed and covered her left eye. Pierce dodged the chair making its way across the floor and reached her, pulling her hand away to check her eye.
“We have to get out of here!” Aloysius yelled over everyone else.
“The electricity is out,” Giovanni yelled back. “No lights in the hallway. The elevator won’t work and the stairs are too unsteady.” Just to remind us how unstable the electricity supply could be during an earthquake, a transformer blew up somewhere close by, a light briefly flashing in front of the window.
“Ok, listen up everyone,” Mauricio’s booming voice sounded above all the commotion. “Everyone go stand in a doorway, preferably on this floor. If there is not enough room, get under the dining room table. Now, hurry!”
People scattered every which way, dodging falling knickknacks, pictures, and lamps. Noticing we were out of doorways, Leilani, Christian, and I dived under the table, huddling close together as if that would stop the possible collapse of the skyscraper we inhabited.
“Why is this lasting so long?” I whispered to Christian.
His terrified eyes settled on my face before he looked at Leilani. “It’s a big one. I love you.”
His words twisted my stomach into knots. We had been through so much together, survived so much, only to die because of an earthquake. I don’t think so. Not today. I held both of them tighter and did the only thing I could. For the first time in almost a century, I prayed.
“I want my Cachi,” Leilani cried against my chest.
“He is ok. He’s upstairs. He will come down as soon as it stops. I promise,” I said back to her, hoping they were not trying to leave the building. Swaying staircases would not be the easiest things to maneuver right not, especially with Tomas still recovering.
“Is everybody alright?” Aloysius yelled from somewhere down the hallway. It wasn’t until then that I noticed the movement had stopped. I pushed away from Leilani a bit and noticed she was shaking and tears rolled down her cheeks. I hugged her against me again.
“It’s ok, honey. We’re all ok. It stopped now,” I explained and crawled out from under the table with her close beside me. Christian stood and took our hands to help us up. I turned toward the living room and yelled, “Somebody please call upstairs, see if they’re ok.”
The three of us walked into the living room as they were picking things up off the floor. Some things looked salvageable and some, like the glass coffee table were beyond hope. The sound of car alarms and barking dogs, both in the building and outside, filled the apartment. I tried to help but Leilani gripped my hand and wouldn’t let go.
“The telephone lines are down,” Giovanni announced as he came out of the kitchen. Just then, Jose Luis ran in.
“Oh, thank God,” I yelled. Leilani released my hand and ran into her brother’s arms. “Are Lucia and Tomas ok?”
“They are fine, a little scared but fine,” he answered and kissed his sister’s head. “They are all packed and ready to go.”
“Giovanni, please use your cell and call the airport, make sure the flights are still on schedule,” The room was losing light pretty fast as the sun made its final descent. It wouldn’t be a problem for the vampires but it would be for the humans. “Aloysius, do you have any candles?”
He hurried toward me with a smile on his face. “Actually, Carmela made sure to keep emergency supplies here. I thought she was nuts but I have since changed my mind.” He went into the kitchen and came back with candles, flashlights, and even an oil lamp.
“What would we do without her?” I said with a laugh.
“No flights today,” Giovanni came back into the room and everyone else gathered there, dropping whatever cleanup they were doing.
FORTY-TWO
“Now what do we do?” Christian asked. We all looked at Aloysius.
“No need to panic. We will keep Tomas, Lucia, and all the children upstairs. They will be guarded. We are going to find Melinda and her gang but, if for any reason they should come looking for us, they only know about this apartment.”
Christian and I took the supplies from him, but before we could get all t
he children together, the building began shaking again. Leilani screamed and ran to me, wrapping her arms around my legs.
“It’s just an aftershock. It’ll pass soon,” Aloysius said and looked at Leilani. “See? It stopped already.”
Everyone stood still for a moment, trying to determine if there was any more movement. There was none so everyone returned to what they were doing. Christian, Jose Luis, and I took Leilani upstairs by way of the darkened stairway. We managed not to scare anyone who might have been on the stairs as we walked in the darkness with Christian carrying Leilani. When we arrived at the other apartment, suitcases lined the side of the entryway.
“I guess we are not flying anywhere tonight,” Tomas said as he maneuvered his crutches around the fallen chair someone had not yet picked up. Jose Luis grabbed the chair and moved it out of the way. Alegría and Lucia knelt on the floor picking up the pieces of a broken flower pot.
“The electricity is out all over the city. You will all have to stay here. You will have two guards at all times, one inside, and one outside the door,” I told him. Lucia paused to look at me, her face pale with fear.
Christian took Leilani to the sofa and set her down before taking the candles out of the bag and lighting them, setting them on any flat surface he found. He reached into the bag again and pulled out three flashlights, passing them out to Jose Luis, Tomas, and Lucia.
“Jose Luis, can you come with me for a moment?” I asked and stepped toward the open door so he would follow me.
“What is it?” he asked as soon as he shut the door behind him.
“I want you to stay with the humans. Having a third vampire with them will be best,” I whispered the rest so no one inside could hear me. “Will you be ok, I mean, you know?”
His eyes widened in shock. “I do know and yes, of course I will be ok.”
“Please don’t be offended. You are a brand new vampire. Sometimes your hunger can feel overwhelming and, being new, you do need to feed more often.”
“I know I am new, but I am fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I love these people, especially my sister. They are not on the menu,” he said in a sarcastic tone.
I laughed and wrapped my arm around him, causing him to relax in spite of his anger. “I always knew you were strong. We are going to go find Melinda and her gang and put an end to this chaos. I am leaving you in charge of the humans. Two guards will be here in a few minutes to help you.”
“Please do not worry about us. Just go do what you need to do and hurry back to us. I want to leave here as soon as possible. I want to go to the United States and really start my new life.”
Just as we finished talking, two guards came walking up the hall. I hugged Jose Luis before walking him back through the door. Leilani sat on the floor, a flashlight in her hand, looking at both of us as we entered.
“You have to go,” she said, her facial expression blank.
“I know. I just wanted to make sure everybody here is situated before I go downstairs to make plans,” I assured her as I took a step toward her.
She shook her head, stopping me in my tracks. “No,” she said, her eyes remaining locked on mine. “It is too late for plans. They are here.”
“Go, Lily,” Mauricio commanded as he pulled me out of the apartment by the arm and then positioned himself in front of the door. “Get downstairs!”
Without hesitation, I ran down the hall and to the stairway. Instead of wasting time by running down the steps, I jumped the whole flight, rounded the corner, and jumped the rest of the way. Giovanni stood outside our apartment.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as I ran toward him.
“Leilani says they are here, in the building.”
“We need to block the stairs,” he said and opened the door to the apartment, going right to the other guards converged inside, awaiting the meeting.
“Lily,” Christian ran in after me. “You took off without me.”
“They are here,” I yelled loud enough for everyone to hear. “They came to us. We’re not ready for them. We still have to—”
Aloysius appeared at my side without me even noticing he moved. “Lily, it will be fine. We are all here. We can do this.”
“But we don’t even have a strategy yet,” I protested.
“We don’t need a strategy. Our only objective is to destroy them. All of them,” he said, his eyes firm.
“Oh, God,” Kalia cried as Aaron wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Please think about it first. What if Maia is with them?”
“Then we try to do whatever we need to do to get Maia away from them safely,” Aloysius said. “Then we destroy them.”
“Just like that?” Christian asked.
“This will never end unless we do. They will always find a reason to pursue Lily and destroy any happiness she finds. We already know reasoning with Melinda is impossible.”
“You have a point there,” Christian answered. “I will get the box of weapons out of the closet. We will grab what we can and wait for them.”
“Two of us are going upstairs to position ourselves at the doorway of the hall. The rest of us will stay with you,” Giovanni announced as he and Margarita exited.
Christian returned with the box. “We don’t have many wooden bullets left.”
“I know. Carmela was supposed to bring more but she must have gotten held up because of the quake. We should have plenty of stakes, though, right?” Aloysius asked as he approached the box.
“Yes,” Christian said and handed a stake to each of us as we stood around the weapons. “Grab a sword or knife, too. We stake and chop their heads off.”
It was really strange to hear Christian talking like that, so brutal and lethal. But he was right; we didn’t have time to waste. The quicker we ended this, the better.
“We ready?” Aloysius asked. Everyone replied that they were. “Out to the hall then. No reason to wait for them here.”
As we filed into the hallway, a door opened down the hall. A man in his early thirties poked his out to investigate the noise, squinting his eyes in the darkness.
“Please go back inside and lock your door,” Fiore yelled to him in Spanish. “Do not open it for anyone.”
The man squinted harder trying to find the source of voice, but then gave up and went back inside. We heard his locks turning.
“Maybe we should go down to meet them,” I whispered to Aloysius. “That would keep them as far away from the others as possible.”
Aloysius opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by a bang against the wall as the stairway door was thrown open. All of us automatically assumed fighting stances, our knees bent and our hands grasping our stakes.
“Lovely security you have in this building,” Melinda’s voice mocked from down the hall. “He will fit quite nicely in my collection.” She shoved Giovanni ahead of her. Arturo walked on one side of her, and two vampires I’d never seen before on the other. Giovanni was gagged and his hands were tied behind him.
I am sorry…I tried to…
“Oh, zip it! No one wants to hear how cowardly you really are,” Melinda taunted interrupting Giovanni’s mental apology. “I will add the other one…the woman, to my collection, too.”
I wanted to lunge at her, scratch her eyes out and feed them to her, but Fiore grabbed my arm. “They have the humans,” she whispered.
My whole body stiffened at that realization. The children were no longer safe. They had been our first priority and their first target.
“Where is Maia?” Kalia asked before I could say what I wanted.
Melinda and the rest stopped about twenty feet in front of us. “Don’t you worry about her. She is keeping the humans entertained. We wouldn’t want them to get bored while we’re having all the fun here now, would we?”
“You keep your hands off them!” I screamed and tried to run toward her. Fiore and Christian held my arms to stop me.
“You all seem like rational adults
to me,” Melinda said. She kept Giovanni in front of her, shielding herself from us.
Giovanni locked his eyes on mine. Though he didn’t think of what he wanted, I knew. He was pleading with me to save Margarita. His love for her was obvious. He cared more about her life than his own. I nodded, promising him that I would do whatever it took to get her back.
“Lily, pay attention. I am talking,” Melinda shook her head. “Always letting your emotions get the best of you. See all the damage you cause?”
“I didn’t do this! You and Ian did this!”
“Hasn’t anyone taught you not to speak ill of the dead? Ian is no more. May I remind you that it was at your hands that he died?” She looked at me for a moment and shook her head. “Anyway, I want to talk. I have a proposition for you all.”
Aloysius stepped to the front of the group. “What is this proposition?”
“Give me Lily and no one else needs to die. It’s that simple. You hand her over to me and all of you, the humans included, and Maia get to walk away, as will we.” She tilted her head as she waited for an answer.
Hushed murmurs ran through our group and, before any of us noticed, Christian ran down the hall toward Melinda. He dove through the air, landing on top of her and Giovanni. I tried to run toward them but Fiore and Aaron restrained me by wrapping their arms around my waist.
“Let’s go get the children,” Aaron said. “The rest can handle this.”
He ran toward the stairway with Fiore, Kalia, and I following close at his heels. We ran up the stairs and reached the door, pulling it open. A scream caught us all off guard.
“Dios mio!” a woman yelled holding her hand to her chest. Her other hand held a leash with a small dog. The dog pulled at the leash, barking furiously, trying to get free of her hold.
“Ma’am, please go back to your apartment,” Aaron said in Spanish.
“I will not. My dog has to go out,” she said and reached down to pick up the furious fur ball.
“Then let him go on newspaper, but go back to your apartment, now! There is a man running around the building with a gun,” Aaron said looking at us and shrugging without the woman seeing. “Go back inside and lock your door.”