“Are you saying that my baby is killing me?” Esmeralda leaned against the sink for support. She was dying? Her baby was killing her? She was instantly reminded of Antonio’s mother, who had died while giving birth to Maria, which was probably one of the reason’s Maria had been so panicked—and was so well informed.
Maria shook her head. “It doesn’t always happen that way, though. Yes, your baby is stealing your energy to become stronger, but that’s why you need to keep yourself hydrated, you need to eat a lot—even if you aren’t hungry; because if you don’t then there is the possibility that you may die. My guess is that the reason you had a spasm out there was because the baby was trying to feed but you are so drained that it started to hurt you.”
Esmeralda took a deep breath in through the nose. She felt a tug at her stomach. She did feel a little hungry, a little empty. She was going to have to eat a lot more than she had been, and keep her strength up if she wanted to save both herself and her child.
Ezzy tried not mentally kicking herself for not taking care of herself in the beginning, not after everything that was unfolding. She swallowed and nodded.
“Okay,” she said. “But, please, don’t tell Antonio. Not yet, anyway. I want to tell him on my own terms.”
Maria nodded in agreement. “One more thing,” she added. “I’ve heard it’s a myth, but it’s said that if a human woman is pregnant with a vampire child, that if the child is powerful enough it secretes certain...” she paused, chewing at her bottom lip before going on, “hormones...that will allow its mother to share its vampire powers. That’s just what I heard, who knows if it’s true or not…We should get going,”
They unlocked the bathroom door and walked out of there, where they found Antonio and Marco sitting down, waiting for them, as far away from each other as possible. Esmeralda resisted the urge to roll her eyes at both of them for acting like immature children, but the thought of children made her think about her baby. She held a hand to her stomach, hoping that no one could tell if she had her hoody on.
The FBSI team were throwing on their gear and grabbing weapons all around them, like they were preparing for battle. It was good, Esmeralda thought, that they now had police officers on their side and they wouldn’t be doing anything super dangerous all by themselves. They would only take part in the investigation, not the actual ‘battle’. It saved her the worry.
She spotted Victoria and Terrance. Terrance was wearing a bullet proof vest and he held various guns and weapons of all shapes and sizes on a hip holster. Victoria, however, was free of a vest; she was a werewolf, and when werewolves were shot they healed quickly.
Esmeralda briefly wondered what kind of supernatural Terrance was; she had guessed he was a half-demon or something and that he had the power to draw out memories from people, which would explain the scene with Rich earlier.
Victoria was straightening the vest on Terrance, and they were speaking in hushed voices, both of them looked serious and intense and it made Esmeralda wonder if they were saying their final goodbye’s, just in case things didn’t run too smoothly. But she shook that thought off as insane. Victoria didn’t seem like the ‘saying goodbye’ type. But then again she couldn’t judge what she didn’t know.
“Ezzy.” Esmeralda looked up. Antonio was towering over her, when he had stood up, she wasn’t sure, but he was holding a little plastic green bag in his hand. “Here.” He handed it to her; she took it gingerly and looked down at it. It was a bag of raisins. “I got it from the vending machine downstairs,” he continued, looking slightly awkward. “You looked hungry, and you haven’t been eating much lately…” He let the sentence trail off in the air.
Ezzy stared at the bag then back up at him. For a moment, she had forgotten that she was mad at him for all of the things he was doing. She knew it was a sweet gesture on his part, as if to say he was sorry for acting the way he did, and was trying to make up for it by taking care of her.
Esmeralda smiled. “Thanks, but I hate raisins.”
“Well, I don’t know much about human food, but it looked like the only thing healthy there. Anything that looks that gross has got to be good for you.”
Esmeralda giggled, recalling a scene where Antonio had stood in the kitchen at Santiago mansion, trying to flip an omelet and epically failing then giving up and fixing her a bowl of cereal instead. She opened the bag and popped a raisin into her mouth. It was gross, yes, and the bitter taste and texture of it made her want to cringe, but she forced it down.
“You don’t have to eat them.” Antonio took the bag back from her. “If you want I can go in one of those offices and steal a box of donuts. We’re in a police station; they’re bound to have them here.”
Esmeralda shook her head. “We’re in a police station, like you said, and I don’t want them to arrest you for stealing their food.”
He lifted his lip up in a half grin. “I doubt they’ll even notice. I’ll be right back.” He walked away from her, chucking the bag of raisins into a trash can on his way. She watched him go up to an empty office and, with a quick look around, he slipped inside. Seconds later he was back at her side, holding a white box with warm donuts. Her mouth watered.
“Buen provecho, querido.”
Funny, Ezzy thought, he had said the exact same thing to her after presenting her with a silver tray of cinnamon cereal and orange juice. She smiled and took the box in her hands, digging into the food greedily. Her energy came back to her in a rush the moment the food settled in the pit of her stomach.
“You.” Ezzy glanced up at the demanding voice. It was Terrance, looking from Antonio to Esmeralda with intense frown. “Come. Now.” Swallowing what was left in her throat and wiping off crumbs from her chin, Ezzy stood up, cradling the box of donuts in her arms like she would a broken cat.
“What do you need?” Esmeralda asked.
Terrance said nothing, only beckoned them to follow him. He led them into a different office, this one had a bunch of computers and high tech gear with a lot of buttons that looked extremely complicated, perhaps from the future, Esmeralda thought weirdly as she stepped into the room.
There was a nerdy looking guy with glasses and orange hair behind the computer screens, clicking away rapidly at the keyboards. Victoria was beside him, looking at the screen as well, except her expression was that of confusion, like she didn’t know what in the hell the kid was doing. She looked up upon their arrival.
“Ms. Ortiz, we’re going to need your help with a few things.”
“Sure, anything you want,”
“You see, my tech nerd, Savvy, here…” She fluffed her hand through his ginger hair. “Needs to know a few things, so he can find them on his super dandy computer.”
“Stop calling me ‘Savvy,’” Savvy said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Without turning, he asked Esmeralda. “Does this friend of yours have a cell phone?” He stopped clicking for a moment to flex his fingers then began typing away again.
“Uhm, yeah. But I don’t see how that’s going to help.”
“I’m going to track her, obviously.” Savvy sighed, as if he were already annoyed with Esmeralda. She blushed.
“I thought you could only track somebody while they were on the phone, to find their location and all?” Antonio put in.
Savvy exhaled—loudly—and swiveled around in his rolling chair, to glare at them. Ezzy noticed he had orange freckles, dotted all across his face, and that his eyes were a luminous green color, the green of spring grass. “Do you people know nothing?” he muttered, which earned him a slap across the back of the head, courtesy of Victoria.
“Savvy! What did I tell you about playing nice because nobody knows jack shit about technology here?”
Savvy rubbed the back of his head, grumbling. “Fine,” he said. “I can use her number to track the area where she made her last call from, regardless of if she’s on the line or not.” He pushed his glasses up again.
Ezzy pulled her phone out of her back p
ocket and tossed it over to him. “I tried calling her a bunch of times earlier but it kept saying she wasn’t available.” She worried her bottom lip.
“Won’t be a problem.” He punched Isis’s number into his computer then began clicking away again, pretending that they weren’t there. A map flashed up on his computer screen, a red dot blinking in a certain area. Savvy leaned back, cracking his fingers, and grinned. “There you have it,” he said. “That’s where your friend made her last call from.”
Terrance leaned over Savvy’s shoulder and looked at the map. Savvy, obviously uncomfortable around Terrance, scooted his chair all of the way in, so as to avoid any contact with the man. “Long ways away,” Terrance stated, his voice smooth.
Victoria leaned in with him and studied the map curiously. “Yeah, I recognize the area. Full of abandoned buildings and farmland.” She scratched her head.
Savvy typed in some more stuff, so fast that it was beginning to annoy Ezzy and make her head hurt. “The property from where your friend made her last call from was initially abandoned, but it was bought two years ago.”
“By who?” Antonio asked, stepping forward to get a closer look at the map. Esmeralda stayed where she was, only listening.
Savvy punched in more things in his computer and files popped up on the screen. “Voila!” He said. “The factory was purchased by a man named Arturo Benson.”
“You got a picture of this man?” Victoria asked.
Savvy typed in something else then shook his head. “No picture, no identification, he paid in cash. There’s no cell phone, address, and no P.O. Box that I can find. He doesn’t appear in any of the systems, he hasn’t purchased anything else—under that name—it’s like he doesn’t even exist.”
“Which means that this is a fake identity, and the one who purchased the factory is probably really Caesareon, gathering his armies there to end humanity.” Victoria ran a hand through her blonde curls. “Our job just got a lot harder, Terrance.” He only nodded, still observing the screen.
“So, does this mean we’re all going to go to the factory?” Antonio asked eagerly.
“No,” Victoria said sternly. “We are. You aren’t.”
15
She figured she would die at the hands of the devil, but not without fighting to survive first. She had asked herself time and time again why she would die standing, rather than live the rest of her life on her knees, at his mercy, when it seemed like there was nothing else left for her to live for.
Her family was dead and gone, she had been his slave for years; she had no one. Yet still, she kept fighting for freedom. It was all she knew, all she could do to keep that part of herself that was still her; that still remained from her old life in Egypt.
Then she found the coven, although she was never really a part of it, never really belonged; and it wasn’t until Antonio had crept into her life, filling her heart with what little joy he could. She felt a new light shine; and then Damien brought Esmeralda in. Where Antonio was that little ray of light, peeking between closed in trees, Esmeralda was the blinding sun, just the way she remembered it in her home land.
The girl was a duplicate of the brother she remembered. Stubborn and crazy, someone who wanted adventure and found danger at every turn, whether they wanted to or not. And for once, Isis found something that was actually worth fighting for.
The girl had given her a reason to go on.
She thought of Esmeralda as Demetria prepared her for battle. She was dressed up in gear, a dark red outfit, belted at the waist. She had long brown boots that were laced up tightly with black laces; her hair was in a simple ponytail on top of her head. Demetria was buttoning up Isis’s heavy leather armored jacket, her face a mask of anger that she didn’t even bother to try and hide.
“Where are we going?” Isis asked curiously.
Demetria finished buttoning the top button and snickered. “Seems our Master doesn’t bother to tell you everything, right?”
For some reason, her tone annoyed Isis. “Oh, he tells me plenty, mostly during our sweet little pillow talk.” Normally, she would have never even considered voicing the idea that she and Caesareon were intimate on such a level, but she knew that it would bother Demetria to no end.
And it did. Demetria clenched her fists, her face had gone a paler shade of white, her eyes flared that angry crimson color. Instead of insulting her, though, Demetria sucked in a breath then let it out again, slowly and replied, “He wishes to issue our first decree of attack on a supernatural hate group in the city, as a warning of what’s to come.”
Isis bit her bottom lip. She had heard of anti-supernatural groups, had seen a few protesting outside of S.E., but never before had she bothered with them. To her, they were just another stupid racist group of ignorant fools. She could understand why they would start there. It was a way to get out a message to the humans and supernaturals alike. It was a message that said “I will kill all those who stand against me,” it was a message that was likely to strike fear in the hearts of others, making them much easier to control.
“So how does he plan on doing this?” Isis asked, determined to get as much information as possible. She didn’t want to blindly rush into anything probably as much as she didn’t want to just help Caesareon. She figured she’d be under his control the entire time, even prepared for that possibility.
“He will explain it all to you before we get there.” Demetria turned her back to Isis and sauntered over to the large closet, pulling out clothes from a drawer. It was a tough looking red material, similar to Isis’s.
Without embarrassment, Demetria began peeling her clothes off until she stood there naked, the flames from the torches illuminating her pale skin in an eerie glow. She began to dress in a suit that was a replica of Isis’s; even the boots were exactly the same.
“We are all required to wear uniforms,” Demetria stated.
Isis simply nodded and looked around the dim room. “So, where’s Caesareon?” Not that she wanted to see him, of course, but it gnawed at her suspicions whenever he wasn’t near her. It made her feel like he was up to something. But then again, Caesareon was always up to something and by now that shouldn’t have been a surprise.
Demetria narrowed her gaze. “You will address him as ‘Master’ or ‘my Lord,’ understand?”
“I’ll do whatever I damn well please,” Isis retaliated. She was sick of Demetria and her ‘high and mighty’ shit. Isis hated Caesareon and Demetria just needed to accept that fact, get over her anger, and move the hell on. Why it seemed to be so difficult for her was beyond Isis. She was tempted to slap the girl but knew that notwhing good would come out of that. She recalled the werewolf incident and forced back a shudder.
“Why can’t you just follow the rules? Why can’t you be just like everybody else, Isis? Why must you be so difficult? I do not understand you…” Demetria demanded from between clenched teeth.
“You’re asking me why I’m not like the rest of Caesareon’s followers…”
Demetria’s eyes flared and she nodded.
For a moment Isis was filled with rage but it quickly diminished into sadness, and she wanted nothing more than to make Demetria understand what she felt, the bone deep need she felt to have control over her own life.
“I will not become a puppet on his strings, Demetria. He may mean the world to you but he has stolen everything from me. He took everything I have, things that are irreplaceable and I do not intend to follow that monster.” She felt her eyes tearing up but blinked away the tears. She didn’t want to seem weak, especially in front of her.
Demetria shook her head back and forth. “If you were wise, Isis, you would see that it is easier to be guided.”
Isis closed her eyes. “You’re wrong,” she whispered. “You’re wrong…”
It was an hour later and Caesareon had shoved her into a vehicle, kept her blindfolded, though she didn’t deem it necessary, and drove her. The drive was far too quiet for her taste; making her wonder
if Caesareon was even there with her. The only reassurance she got was that he would place his hand gently on her leg and move it just as quickly.
Finally, she asked, “How are we doing this battle thing, anyway?”
Caesareon laughed. “I am afraid that you must wait. I will show you what you must do. It is quite simple, really.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“You shall see, Isis.” And then he fell silent. The minutes that passed were agonizing, and it wasn’t just the boredom. She wanted to know what he was leading her to, what it was she was up against. She had been to battle with Caesareon before; her hands were tainted with the bloodstains of the many lives she had ended all those years ago. And the thing is, back then, she didn’t feel remorse for who she killed, at least, not in the moment.
Sometimes when they would go into battle Caesareon would make sure she didn’t have food for a week, sometimes months. Normally that would make any vampire go weak, but when her feet first touched that battle field and blood assaulted her nostrils, well, she couldn’t help herself. She would feed upon the prey, losing control of who she really was and not feel a thing as she quenched her thirst.
Only afterwards, when she was bathing in the lake, would she go underwater and cry all she wanted, because that was the one time that no one could gaze upon her and call her weak. Often she had wondered why they considered her weak. Was it because she had a hold on her humanity? Was it her compassion for fragile creatures like humans? She knew that there were bad people out there, bad people who deserved to die, but she would never kill them, unless they were a direct threat to her.
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