When Dusk Comes, page 17
A grizzly man holding a wooden bat materialized just a few feet ahead of Charlie. “Hello bitch.” He laughed at his own joke, exposing a plethora of cracked teeth. Charlie wondered how many hits to the face this winner had endured.
“Dude, you really don’t want to fuck with me,” Charlie warned. She cracked her knuckles and dropped her bag next to her feet.
“Oh, but I do.” He licked his chops and took a step forward. In the same instance a white van screeched to a halt behind him. Three more thugs jumped out of the side and left the driver waiting as the getaway.
Fuck. Charlie thought as the mob approached. She turned on her heels to run.
“Ah, don’t go yet. We’ve not even had a chance to play,” the guy with the mangled face taunted as two more men appeared behind Charlie to cut off her exit point, the pair that had been following her. She was surrounded on all sides by assailants and brick walls too tall to scale.
“What do you want?” Charlie shifted gears from attack mode to negotiator. “Money?” she asked. “I can get you plenty of that.”
“Oh, I want something much more valuable than that,” he answered, closing in on Charlie.
Double fuck.
“Are you sure? Look in here.” Charlie threw her bag into the ringleader’s face and leapt toward him boots first. A solid kick landed in his gut and sent him sprawling. Charlie dodged a clumsy fist and picked up the dropped bat.
“Bitch has teeth,” she heard someone say. That’s enough of that, Charlie thought, bringing the bat down on the smart mouth. Won’t be spouting any more jokes out of there, she thought when she heard the sweet sound of his mandible shattering. But there was no time to revel in the triumph. There were four more jerks left standing.
“Get her legs!” she heard the ringleader bark breathlessly from the floor, and she responded by smashing the bat against his skull.
Dammit, Charlie thought when she was left with just a handle and wooden shards. At least he won’t be barking anymore orders, she decided as
she drove the pointed remains of the splintered bat through the eye socket of an oncoming attacker.
That’s three down, Charlie thought, gaining momentum as she swung her fist, connecting with someone’s temple. He went down, but without the bat, she lost too much time and the last two men overpowered her from behind, sending her tumbling to the ground. Pain flooded her chest, and she knew it was bad.
“Gimme the bag!” the man sitting on her back screamed to the guy holding down Charlie’s feet. The taste of cement and blood flooded her mouth. No good. If they get her to the van, she would have little chance of escape. Charlie squirmed and fought with all her might, but the man on top of her was so heavy, his knee in her back was making it hard to breathe.
You fucked up, Charlie decided when her legs were free. She waited for the younger of the two to come back with whatever the hell they planned to transport her in. She listened to his footsteps approach and when he was close enough, she kicked back with all her might. He won’t be able to procreate. Hell, he might not even be able to pee, and Charlie decided that was alright with her.
When the Neanderthal on top of her glanced back to see what that awful sound was, Charlie tried to throw him off balance and get to her feet.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked with a laugh. All her strength wasn’t enough to make him budge an inch, and now she was even more sure she had a cracked sternum. “I know how to take care of you,” he said, lifting one hand off Charlie’s back. The pain she had attributed to being held down didn’t abate, and Charlie knew her ribs are broken too.
Charlie heard his fist sailing though the air before she felt it crash against her skull.
“Ayo! The fuck you doin’ back there!” a young man’s voice rang through the air, and Charlie stopped struggling. The weight lifted from her back, leaving excruciating pain in its absence. The van peeled out, and the smell of burnt rubber stung her nose.
“Call 911!” the passerby shouted as he ran down the alley toward Charlie. “Don’t move, lady,” he warned as he looked down at her mangled body. The pain overwhelmed her, but she held on until the sound of sirens echoed down the street.
Chapter Thirteen
Erin flipped on a light after looking up from her laptop to discover the sunset had left her apartment in the dark. She stretched her back and sauntered over to the fridge for a beer, checking her phone as she went. It had become a habit, and at this point she was sure that Charlie wouldn’t be returning her call.
“This looks edible,” Erin muttered before pulling out a microwavable meal from the freezer. A knock at the door interrupted her dinner preparation. “Who is it?” she asked after a moment of hesitation. She wasn’t expecting visitors.
“It’s me,” a familiar voice drifted through the door.
“What do you want?” Erin asked, opening the door just a crack.
“I can leave if you don’t wish to see me.”
Fear and uncertainty clouded Erin’s judgment. “Come in, I guess.” She stepped back to allow her visitor to step over the threshold.
“Very kind of you, Miss Lewis,” he replied as if Erin had greeted him with the warmest welcome.
“What do you want, Samael?” Erin asked, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against her kitchen counter.
“I believe you were to meet with Charlie Hendrix,” he said, removing his dark grey newsboy cap to reveal his salt and pepper curls. He pulled off
his wet raincoat before hanging it on the coat hook without invitation.
Erin moved back to create more distance between herself and Samael.
“I don’t think so. I called her, but she never got back to me,” she explained from the far side of the kitchen.
“She came here to see you three days ago.” Samael sat down at Erin’s table and motioned for her to have a seat across from him. Erin didn’t move a muscle. He was not going to tell her what to do in her own home.
“Someone attacked her,” he continued with no hint of emotion.
“What?” Erin jumped forward as her heart leapt into her throat. “Is she okay? Where is she?”
“She’s recovering,” he answered as if bored with the conversation.
“What the hell does that mean? Where is she?” Erin asked impatiently.
“Miss Lewis, I have little time. I can tell you she is recovering from her injuries. You may be able to see her at some other time, but that’s not why I’m here.” Samael’s words were measured, as if even breathing the same air as Erin was beneath him.
“Can’t I revoke your license to be here, or un-invite you or something?”
Erin asked, walking over to Samael but leaning against the wall instead of sitting down.
“That’s a myth, as is probably everything else you believe about us.” He couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “People can be so gullible.”
“How about garlic, do you like that?” Erin snapped. She hated having this conversation with Samael.
“Also a myth, and one of the more inane ones,” he responded.
“How about turning into bats, having no reflection, or aversion to silver?” Erin rattled off the well-known list of vampire traits to annoy him.
“Miss Lewis.” Samael took a deep breath as if reminding himself why he was there. “Your people have come up with many beliefs about our kind.
Few of them are accurate. We’re not allergic to silver, we appear on reflective surfaces, and we can’t shape shift into any creatures. At least your ancestors had far more interesting ideas about us eating babies or stealing virgins in the night,” he said impatiently. “Bats,” he muttered.
“Well if I drive a stake through your heart will you die?” Erin’s words sounded more like a threat than a question.
“Wouldn’t you?” he countered.
Fair point. Erin sat down to hear what Samael had to say. “Why are you here?”
“I’m here to have whatever conversation you were meant to have with Charlie,” he explained, seemingly trying to sound less unsympathetic to Erin’s concerns.
“Why should I trust you to be honest with me?” she asked directly.
“Because I don’t care enough about you to lie,” he responded with a raised eyebrow.
“If you don’t care about me, then why come all the way out here?” she asked, trying to keep her tone free of cynicism but failing.
“Because Miss Lewis, I may not care about you, but my Queen does,”
he said, giving Erin direct eye contact.
Queen? Erin remained quiet for a moment while she tried to straighten out her thoughts. “How old are you?”
“Older than you,” he snapped. “And your parents. And your great-great-grandparents.” He avoided giving an exact number. “But I’m not older than Lucía.” He anticipated her next question. “Your kind is so obsessed with age,” he added as an offhand comment.
“So, what? Are you undead or something?” Erin asked, wondering in horror if perhaps she was a necrophiliac.
“No,” he responded curtly. “We can bleed, Miss Lewis. If we can bleed, then we can die and therefore are not already dead. Our hearts merely beat slower than yours, and that is one of the many reasons we last longer on this terrestrial plane. Although there are some that believe we can live indefinitely unless something hastens our end, but I don’t subscribe to that school of thought.”
“That makes sense,” Erin muttered to herself, thankful she hadn’t been having sex with a zombie.
“Unlike your kind, we value age. We don’t obsess over our mortality as you do,” Samael continued unprompted. Erin wondered how long he’d wanted to deliver this speech to an insignificant human like her, but she let him go on. “Do you know why?”
She refused to give him the satisfaction of a response, but Samael just continued on as if she had.
“Because after your embarrassingly short peek between your late teens and late thirties, you only grow feebler with each passing year. You revert to infants. Mindless and in diapers.” Samael laughed, but there was no joy in his eyes.
Erin’s cheeks flushed with heat. What she wouldn’t give to see that wooden stake theory play out.
“Age for us brings increased knowledge and strength. We only become better and more lethal with the passage of time.” He jutted his chin in the air, tempting Erin to wipe the smug look off his face.
“So that’s why Lucía is your leader? Because she’s older than you?”
Erin asked, trying to keep her temper under control.
“Lucía’s age is only one factor for her role.” Samael’s tone changed when he spoke of her.
“What are the others?” Erin asked, needing to know more about her.
“When a person evolves from human to vampire, her human traits and genetics carry on and become amplified. Therefore, a human monarch will already be at an advantage when she takes on her new form.” Erin detected the reverence in Samael’s voice as he spoke.
“Lucía was a queen?” Erin tried to wrap her head around what Samael was saying. She could sense Lucía’s effortless power before, but figured it came with money and influence.
“She was,” he confirmed with a long nod. “And she still is.”
“Will you tell me about it?” Erin dropped her antagonistic tone. “About her, I mean.”
“Very well.” Samael shifted in his seat, ready to oblige. “Lucía hasn’t always been her name. Neither has mine been Samael, but I’m sure you may have suspected that already,” he said with a fairly good-natured smirk, at least for him. “She was the Cacique of her people. A chieftain,” he explained. “A title she inherited from her father when she was only fifteen, but she was a competent ruler from the start.” Samael’s chest inflated with pride. “She brokered peace with the rival tribe and brought tranquility and security to her subjects, which totaled over ten thousand.” He let that number sink in. “In that time such a massive grouping of Taino people under one ruler was rare.”
Erin’s eyes widened in rapt attention. She couldn’t imagine what Lucía must have been like then. She pictured her softer and full of hope. The way most people were at that age. Though she couldn’t imagine that she’d ever been like most people.
“Then the Spaniards came.”
Samael’s face darkened, and Erin’s heart dropped. There could be no happy ending. Lucía didn’t live out her reign in peace while turning wrinkled and gray and then laying down to meet a quiet end to her days.
“Word traveled slowly then, and by the time it arrived, it came stamped on the pointed ends of blood-soaked blades.” Samael snarled as he closed his eyes as if to watch the scene in his mind. Erin’s eyes filled with emotion and a chill tore down her spine.
“Lucía put up a fierce resistance. She led her skilled warriors, and they smashed like a violent tide against silver and steel. They took down almost a hundred would-be conquerors in a single morning with nothing but arrows and spears.” Samael paused in a way that made Erin’s heart pound in her ears. “But the Spaniards slaughtered thousands. Women. Children. Old ones. Young ones. The invading mob was indiscriminate in their murderous advance. They left the principle village soaked in blood and continued on to the outlying settlements.” Samael hung his head, and Erin couldn’t stop the tears from coming.
“Lucía had no choice but to gather the couple hundred that remained and prepare to flee into the woods. But first they buried each one of their fallen tribesmen in a large stone tomb.” Erin could see a fierce rage rise in Samael’s face. “They wasted precious time preparing them for the afterlife.
They brought food and water for their souls to take on their journey,” he spit with disdain.
“Were you there?” Erin asked, her voice raspy and trembling.
Samael shook his head. “If only I had been,” he replied. “Maybe I would have convinced her to run and regroup without stopping to perform meaningless rituals for corpses.” He tightened his jaw.
“What happened next?” she asked, needing to know how Lucía survived. How she became what she was now.
“The conquering horde returned, of course. There were still many riches they hadn’t plundered in the main city. Oh, what civilized men will do to women and children. How they stole the relics of ancestors for the shiny gems they contained.” Samael seethed at the memory. “Another onslaught came down on Lucía and the other survivors of the first attack.” He took a deep breath. “This time, only Lucía was left standing. The bodies of her brothers and sisters in arms littered the ground around her. But they left the skilled warrior queen unscathed.” Samael swallowed hard. “She was to be the prize, you see.”
She couldn’t fathom the fear Lucía felt if she was now shaking in the safety of her apartment. “But she survived,” Erin said, hoping that Lucía made it through without suffering the unimaginable.
“She did,” Samael nodded. “Someone was watching over her. A specter in the shadows. It came for her in the night while she was bound and left to wait for the conqueror to claim her. But while the savages became drunk on victory and cassava wine, Lucía was transforming. No one has ever done it faster. It took mere minutes for her to break the ropes tying her wrists and ankles together. And then the thirst was upon her.” Samael’s gaze lifted from the floor to meet Erin’s stare. There was a gleam in them that told Erin how this part ended. “And she drank until there wasn’t a beating heart left in her wake.” He puffed out his chest in pride.
Erin should have been terrified, but she wasn’t. She was satisfied that the murderers met a just end and hoped it wasn’t at all quick and painless.
“How did she get here? What happened next?” Erin asked, her body leaning forward of its own accord.
Samael made a sound that Erin interpreted as a chuckle. “If you want to know, you’ll have to ask her yourself.” He stood and started toward the door.
“Wait.” Erin rushed to his side. “I want to see her.” The words flew out of her mouth before she could process them.
“Then gather your things,” he instructed, glancing at his heavy gold watch.
* * *
The flight to France was long enough for Erin to exhaust herself with anxiety. She even slept despite being surrounded by people she knew were vampires. She wondered if any had considered attacking her but didn’t dare ask. Lucía had probably staked some kind of claim on her or something.
Erin wanted to ask Samael but was sure he would laugh at her naivety about the inner workings of vampire culture. She refused to look like some kind of rube.
The pilot announced their descent, and Erin’s mind raced with possibilities. Will Lucía want to feed from me? Will it hurt? Has she been wanting to drink me blood? Does she have to control herself constantly?
Does she lose control? The questions abounded and multiplied even as she sat in the SUV speeding toward the French countryside.
Erin chewed on the inside of her lip to release her nerves until she thought better of it. What if I make it bleed? Samael might not be able to resist. She fidgeted with her phone instead.
“Here we are,” Samael announced when the car turned down a gravel road lined with trees on each side. The branches extended above them and intertwined, creating a magical green tunnel. A blanket of colorful wild flowers spread over large swaths of land and beyond. The sight must be incredible during the day, but even at night it seemed otherworldly.
They continue up the long road until meeting with a massive iron gate.
Light floods the car while guards verify their identity. The heavy gates parted and they continue along the long driveway. Erin peered through the window in awe at what she could only describe as a castle.
The sprawling landscape was breathtaking, and now Erin couldn’t wait to see this place during the day. It was something out of a history book and striking enough to make her forget her nerves for a few moments.
“Miss Lewis,” Samael called from the exterior of the car, breaking Erin out of her daze.
