When Dusk Comes, page 24
Lucía was strong and authoritative. No one would guess that just a couple of hours ago she hardly had the strength to stand.
“We may not know the identities of the group that works against us, but what they want is to eject me from my position,” she continued in a tone even more commanding and resolute than before. “I intend to give them exactly that.”
“No!” Charlie protested loudly. “You can’t!”
“My Queen!” The twins stood together in protest. “We can fight them!”
Samael and Erin remained silent while the others begged and pleaded with Lucía to change her mind.
“It will only be for a short time,” Lucía promised. “To everyone except those in this room, it will appear as though I have stepped down,” she explained, hoping to calm them. “Or,” she added after a pause, “it may appear I’ve been forced out from the inside.” She gave Samael an indiscernible look.
“Where will you go?” Charlie asked with wide eyes.
“Into hiding. If you, your grandmother, Adrian, and Nicholas want to come, you’re most welcome to, but you can’t tell anyone where we’re going and you can’t change your mind once we’ve gone.”
“We will never leave you.” Adrian spoke for himself and his brother.
Lucía nodded deeply in gratitude and faces her paramour. “Erin, I know you have a lot of questions. We can discuss it privately.”
“And what about me my Queen?” Samael stood from his chair. “What shall you have me do?” he asked, his tone uncharacteristically uncertain.
“You, my dear Samael” –her lips curled into a wicked grin— “will crush the dissidents.”
Lucía vested Samael with the full authority to act as her regent. They prepared the basic template of what the official story would be, and she watched as Samael sold it with confidence to the many concerned faces jammed in small squares on a computer screen.
Erin waited in the corner of the room, either she had been forgotten or maybe Lucía had decided that Erin had finally seen enough such that shielding her was no longer be necessary. As soon as Samael was done lying with conviction to the important people on the screen, Erin took Lucía’s hand and together they walked toward the bedroom.
“You could have warned me, you know,” Erin commented as they made their way down a long hallway.
“There was no time. I hope you can forgive me.”
“So where do you plan on going? Will I be able to see my dad? How do we know it’s safe to come back? How long will this go on?” Erin unloaded her barrage of questions in rapid succession.
“Well…” Lucía laid on her freshly changed bedsheets and pulled Erin in close. “There’s a small town in Nova Scotia,” she said as she remembering Samael’s plan to hide in the ice. “It will hide us well.” Her eyes slipped closed against her will.
* * *
Lucía sat amongst old tomes and dusty volumes. This was the last of her libraries left unchecked. She looked at the same pages she’d reviewed half a dozen times. No matter how many anthologies she read, how many old ledgers and journals, she couldn’t piece together who might have such a
vendetta against her. Perhaps it no longer mattered, but so many years of power had left Lucía unaccustomed to feelings of ignorance or impotence.
She pushed away the decades old diary with a huff. Her past seemed much duller than she remembered it. She stared at the hand drawn symbol marking every note she’d received from the terrorist. Her finger traced the circular serpent.
“My Queen,” Samael peeked his head in the door.
“You have to stop calling me that,” Lucía admonished as she waved him in. She intended a light tone, but her words had hard edges that betrayed her true emotions.
“You will always be my Queen,” he replied. Lucía could sense his discomfort, as if he had been holding his breath for hours.
“Something wrong?” she asked, pushing a dark swath of hair away from her face. The moments passed in an inexplicably tense silence as Lucía’s question hung in the air. “This is a new side of you.” Lucía smirked regally.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever known you to be so meek, Samael,” she added, leaning back in her chair.
“Where will you go?” he asked.
She got the sense that wasn’t what he really wanted to ask. “It’s better if no one knows exactly where. Minimizes the risk,” she said coldly. “I said too much already.” She thought about her comment about Canada the night before.
“You can trust me, my Queen,” Samael protested, and Lucía watched the vein in his forehead bulge and pulsate. “What if you need help?”
“Then I shall make contact as needed.” Lucía stood and leaned over her desk to display her dominance. Samael nodded once as Lucía’s sharp tone
carved a hole is his chest. He stood and took his leave without another word.
Lucía sat back in her heavy leather chair, her mind in quiet contemplation. She closed her eyes and let her head rest against her own shoulder.
Chapter Twenty One
Lucía was hardly visible behind the stacks of books piled high on her desk. “I think I’ve packed up just about everything for this super secret hideaway,” Erin announced as she entered the dimly lit room.
Autumn had only just begun, but the days were already growing shorter.
Lucía nodded and pushed her chair back so Erin could lean against her desk as they spoke.
Erin scanned the mess on the desk. “Is everything ready for the transition?”
Lucía exhaled deeply. “One would presume that a month was long enough to hand over temporary control of the community and the businesses…”
“But one would be wrong, huh,” she joked, overwhelmed on Lucía’s behalf.
“One would,” she responded. “Now, I’m sure you didn’t come in here to discuss the minutia of a political handover.” She stood and pressed her body against Erin.
“So, I know you were thinking about going to Canada,” she divulged immediately. Lucía leaned forward and ran her lips along Erin’s rounded cheek bone.
“It was more than a passing thought, Miss Lewis,” Lucía said in a throaty whisper, and suddenly Erin lost her feet from underneath her. Lucía had lifted her onto the desk.
A violent rush of heat rose to Erin’s face. “What if” –she brushed her lips against Lucía’s as she spoke— maybe we can go to New England.
Perhaps a couple hours outside Boston?” Her lips continued down the column of Lucía’s throat.
“Do you mean your father’s house?” Lucía’s eyes slipped closed.
“Not in his house.” She grinned when Lucía released the tiniest moan.
She loved upsetting the power balance between them. “There’s a farm for sale not that far from him. Out in the middle of nowhere. No one around for miles and miles.” The tip of her tongue ran up Lucía’s neck so she could whisper her words right in her ear.
“How resourceful of you to have found it,” Lucía teased.
Erin threw her head back and groaned when she felt her fangs cross her clavicle. “I get that you have to keep a low profile. I thought maybe I can still see my dad even if we can’t be traveling.” The words leaked out in unbalanced increments.
“I will look into it,” she replied. Lucía’s fingers tangled in messy blonde hair and pulled to expose Erin’s neck. She placed warm kisses along the column before reaching her trembling lips. “What if we brought your father with us?”
“What?” Erin forced her eyes open. She’d almost forgotten what they were discussing. “Bring him?” she repeated, still struggling to catch her breath. “How? What will I say?”
“Say what you must,” she shrugged, her hands gripping the tops of Erin’s thighs tightly.
“Okay.”
A growl rumbled deep in Lucía’s chest. Her hands moved more quickly than Erin’s mind could process. Before she knew it, she was against the desk, her chest pressed hard against the antique wood.
* * *
“You can skulk behind the door all night or you can come in,” Lucía called after listening to Charlie’s footsteps burning a hole in the floor outside her office. After a moment, the heavy wooden door creaked open, revealing a distraught Charlie. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping? We have a long day of traveling ahead,” Lucía said as she glanced at the time. The pre-dawn hours meant little to Lucía, but werewolves need rest.
“I can’t sleep,” she admitted.
“What troubles you?” she asked, closing her laptop and putting aside her search for properties in rural New England.
“Why do you want to go into hiding? This isn’t you.” Charlie blurted out hastily.
Lucía was only surprised that she waited this long to ask. “I recognize that this is difficult to understand.” Her words were laced with the patience usually only reserved for Erin. “But you know better than anyone that what we’re dealing with can’t be combated with conventional means.”
“Yes, but why should we hide like cowards?” Charlie demanded. “Let’s play into their game. Let’s prepare an ambush. They’re getting closer to you, right? So we open right up, let them think they got you, and then we
hit them with everything we’ve got!” Charlie grew frantic as she explained her plan.
“Charlie, how many more will die in the process?” Lucía asked, maintaining her low, even tone. “How many more evil deeds will be falsely attributed to me?”
“We’re soldiers, Lucía! If we die fighting, then so be it!” Charlie pleaded as she leaned forward in her chair.
“And what of the innocents caught in between?” Lucía asked calmly.
“How many more children will there be before they make their direct attack on me? Do you have any idea?” Her question was rhetorical, and it brought her point into focus. “They don’t just want to hurt me, Charlie. They want to destroy us by any means necessary. Are you willing to hold that weight on your shoulders?”
“I’m willing to fight,” Charlie declared as she stood.
“Will you not join us then?”
“I cannot hide,” she admitted quietly.
Lucía stood to lend some level of formality to the moment. “Then you will be second in command. You’ll have worked in concert with Samael and some others to oust me.” She walked around the front of her desk and extended her arm only to be attacked by a hug.
“Take care of my grandma, okay?” Charlie’s eyes filled with tears, but she disappeared into the hallway before they fell to her cheeks.
Lucía leaned back against the front of her desk. She had expected Charlie would resist going into hiding, but she hadn’t realized it would hurt quite so much.
* * *
“What do you mean, they weren’t there?” the angry voice boomed through the hall so loudly the bricks and mortar seem to shift. This was supposed to be the day that Lucía Guerra finally answered for her crimes.
“I-I don’t know. They were supposed to be there for three more days.”
The young man wiped the sweat from his brow using his palm, exposing the rounded black brand on his wrist. He tried to explain in rambling sentences that when he led his team of twenty through the vampire queen’s estate, there wasn’t a soul to be found. Even the full-time staff had disappeared.
“Stop your sniveling,” the voice exploded, causing three trained assassins to stand a little closer as if hoping for safety in numbers. “Where have they gone?”
The three men looked at each other, and the one standing slightly forward swallowed hard before answering. “We haven’t figured that out yet,” he admitted with a heavy tremble in his voice and a violent shaking in his knees.
There was a long pause. The seething rage was tangible like billowing smoke from an uncontrolled fire filling the room. The men stood together, awaiting their fates.
“Find her.” The deep growl made the threat clear. The punishment for failure would be their lives.
Chapter Twenty Two
“Dad?” Erin poked her head through the unlocked gate as her nose led her to the fire pit warming up the cool, fall evening.
“Erin?” Pete dropped his conversation with Gail and made a beeline for his daughter. “What are you doing here? What’s wrong?” His eyes darted all over Erin to see what physical harm there might be.
“Nice to see you too,” she said, forcing a laugh before hugging her dad.
“You know it’s nice to see you, honey, but I wasn’t expecting you,” Pete said, worry clear on his face.
“I’m okay, I promise. I came to say hello. Hi Gail!” Erin called to the woman loitering near the barbecue. She was suddenly very interested in greeting her dad’s girlfriend. Pete’s skeptical eyes followed Erin as she walked.
“Was it a long trip? Are you hungry?” Gail offered after they exchanged pleasantries.
“No, I’m okay, thanks,” Erin said with a smile despite her father’s intense glares, as if staring at her hard enough would allow him to read her mind. Under the weight of his stare, she admitted, “Listen, I, um, I came here for something.”
“What is it, kiddo?”
“I brought Lucía. I want you to meet her,” she explained, changing her mind on how to approach this.
“Is that why you’re shaking like a leaf!” Pete howled in relief with his hand to his chest. “Jesus Christ, honey, you almost killed me. I don’t even know what the hell I thought you were gonna say,” he said, pulling Erin into a hug. “Where is she?”
“In the car. Can we go inside?”
The trio walked into the house through the backdoor, and Erin continued on her own through the front. She took deep breaths as she crossed the long driveway and out to the street where the SUV waited.
“That was fast,” Lucía said, looking up from her phone.
“Change of plans,” Erin blurted. “I didn’t tell him. His girlfriend is there, and he was all freaked out,” she admitted, her face vacillating between bright pink and pale. “So, I, um…” Erin hesitated. Maybe one day this will make a hilarious story. Lucía’s eyes searched her expectantly. “So I told him we came to visit so he could meet you.” Her tone turned up at the end as if she were asking a question.
The forever unshakable Lucía slipped her phone into her trouser pocket.
“It would be rude to keep him waiting,” she announced before stepping out into the evening.
Silence followed them on their walk up the driveway. Erin had never brought anyone home to meet her dad before, which on its own would be plenty reason for racing nerves. She hadn’t even noticed Lucía take her hand until they stepped onto the porch.
“Do you need him to invite you in?” Erin asked in a panicked whisper, wondering how she could get her dad to do that. It would be weird for them to knock; the door was open and they would be expected to walk in.
The question, and the absurd terror in Erin’s eyes, produced a chuckle from the depths of Lucía’s chest.
“Lucía!” Pete swung the door open wide, a huge grin plastered on his face. “Welcome, please come in!” he continued much to Erin’s relief.
Lucía extended her hand as she crossed the threshold. “Thank you, Mr.
Lewis. It’s lovely to finally meet you.”
“Call me Pete,” he insisted, pulling Lucía in for a hug.
“You must be Gail.” Lucía smiled and put on her politician’s charm.
“Erin has told me so much about you.” The way Lucía gave Gail her undivided attention turned her face into a blushing red mess.
“Ha, well, she’s a sweet girl,” Gail said with a smile but didn’t spare Erin a glance.
“She certainly is,” Lucía echoed, sending a wink in Erin’s direction.
Pete stared quizzically back and forth between Erin and Lucía while his girlfriend engaged his guest in polite small talk.
“Dad?” Erin interrupted Pete’s gawking.
“Yes honey?” Pete snapped back to the present.
“Are you hungry? We’re just finishing up a brisket.” Gail looked only at Lucía.
“Yes,” Lucía responded with a sugary smile before Erin could decline.
“I’m famished. Thank you very much.”
Erin turned to Lucía in open skepticism, but neither Pete nor Gail seemed to notice. They were too busy hurrying outside to check on the food. “Make yourselves comfortable!” Pete called as he left.
“So what the hell was that?” Erin asked, realizing she had never seen Lucía interact with any human that didn’t work for her.
“What was what, my sweet?” Lucía asked innocently, leaning forward to kiss her cheek, but she backed away before she could make contact.
“Did you hypnotize her with your powers of seduction?” she asked with a scrunched-up face. She gasped in shock and asked, “Have you hypnotized me?”
“Hypnotize?” Lucía chuckled. “Dearest this is just me. I should really better inform you about my kind.”
“Well then, how do you explain a straight fifty-year-old woman being absolutely smitten with you?” she demanded incredulously.
“What can I say?” Lucía’s pearly white smile beamed. “I’m a delight,”
she explained with a shrug.
“You are the absolute worst.” Erin rolled her eyes.
* * *
Erin did her best not to look at Lucía while the four of them sat around the small square table enjoying friendly conversation. She never expected Lucía to seem so earthly and normal. She laughed at her dad’s terrible jokes and complimented Gail’s homemade green bean casserole as if it reminded her of the way her mom used to make it. Erin knew it was impossible, yet there was no trace of dishonesty in her enjoyment. Erin thought of how Lucía described what it was like for her to eat food and couldn’t imagine that she could feign such happiness at a bloody banquet. Oh this is delicious. Please pass the AB Negative. I can’t get enough! Erin put down her fork after successfully grossing herself out.
“So how long are you visiting?” Gail asked, steering the conversation away from more embarrassing stories about Erin’s teenage years.
“Just for dinner,” Erin piped up almost before Gail could finish her question.
“We may not know the identities of the group that works against us, but what they want is to eject me from my position,” she continued in a tone even more commanding and resolute than before. “I intend to give them exactly that.”
“No!” Charlie protested loudly. “You can’t!”
“My Queen!” The twins stood together in protest. “We can fight them!”
Samael and Erin remained silent while the others begged and pleaded with Lucía to change her mind.
“It will only be for a short time,” Lucía promised. “To everyone except those in this room, it will appear as though I have stepped down,” she explained, hoping to calm them. “Or,” she added after a pause, “it may appear I’ve been forced out from the inside.” She gave Samael an indiscernible look.
“Where will you go?” Charlie asked with wide eyes.
“Into hiding. If you, your grandmother, Adrian, and Nicholas want to come, you’re most welcome to, but you can’t tell anyone where we’re going and you can’t change your mind once we’ve gone.”
“We will never leave you.” Adrian spoke for himself and his brother.
Lucía nodded deeply in gratitude and faces her paramour. “Erin, I know you have a lot of questions. We can discuss it privately.”
“And what about me my Queen?” Samael stood from his chair. “What shall you have me do?” he asked, his tone uncharacteristically uncertain.
“You, my dear Samael” –her lips curled into a wicked grin— “will crush the dissidents.”
Lucía vested Samael with the full authority to act as her regent. They prepared the basic template of what the official story would be, and she watched as Samael sold it with confidence to the many concerned faces jammed in small squares on a computer screen.
Erin waited in the corner of the room, either she had been forgotten or maybe Lucía had decided that Erin had finally seen enough such that shielding her was no longer be necessary. As soon as Samael was done lying with conviction to the important people on the screen, Erin took Lucía’s hand and together they walked toward the bedroom.
“You could have warned me, you know,” Erin commented as they made their way down a long hallway.
“There was no time. I hope you can forgive me.”
“So where do you plan on going? Will I be able to see my dad? How do we know it’s safe to come back? How long will this go on?” Erin unloaded her barrage of questions in rapid succession.
“Well…” Lucía laid on her freshly changed bedsheets and pulled Erin in close. “There’s a small town in Nova Scotia,” she said as she remembering Samael’s plan to hide in the ice. “It will hide us well.” Her eyes slipped closed against her will.
* * *
Lucía sat amongst old tomes and dusty volumes. This was the last of her libraries left unchecked. She looked at the same pages she’d reviewed half a dozen times. No matter how many anthologies she read, how many old ledgers and journals, she couldn’t piece together who might have such a
vendetta against her. Perhaps it no longer mattered, but so many years of power had left Lucía unaccustomed to feelings of ignorance or impotence.
She pushed away the decades old diary with a huff. Her past seemed much duller than she remembered it. She stared at the hand drawn symbol marking every note she’d received from the terrorist. Her finger traced the circular serpent.
“My Queen,” Samael peeked his head in the door.
“You have to stop calling me that,” Lucía admonished as she waved him in. She intended a light tone, but her words had hard edges that betrayed her true emotions.
“You will always be my Queen,” he replied. Lucía could sense his discomfort, as if he had been holding his breath for hours.
“Something wrong?” she asked, pushing a dark swath of hair away from her face. The moments passed in an inexplicably tense silence as Lucía’s question hung in the air. “This is a new side of you.” Lucía smirked regally.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever known you to be so meek, Samael,” she added, leaning back in her chair.
“Where will you go?” he asked.
She got the sense that wasn’t what he really wanted to ask. “It’s better if no one knows exactly where. Minimizes the risk,” she said coldly. “I said too much already.” She thought about her comment about Canada the night before.
“You can trust me, my Queen,” Samael protested, and Lucía watched the vein in his forehead bulge and pulsate. “What if you need help?”
“Then I shall make contact as needed.” Lucía stood and leaned over her desk to display her dominance. Samael nodded once as Lucía’s sharp tone
carved a hole is his chest. He stood and took his leave without another word.
Lucía sat back in her heavy leather chair, her mind in quiet contemplation. She closed her eyes and let her head rest against her own shoulder.
Chapter Twenty One
Lucía was hardly visible behind the stacks of books piled high on her desk. “I think I’ve packed up just about everything for this super secret hideaway,” Erin announced as she entered the dimly lit room.
Autumn had only just begun, but the days were already growing shorter.
Lucía nodded and pushed her chair back so Erin could lean against her desk as they spoke.
Erin scanned the mess on the desk. “Is everything ready for the transition?”
Lucía exhaled deeply. “One would presume that a month was long enough to hand over temporary control of the community and the businesses…”
“But one would be wrong, huh,” she joked, overwhelmed on Lucía’s behalf.
“One would,” she responded. “Now, I’m sure you didn’t come in here to discuss the minutia of a political handover.” She stood and pressed her body against Erin.
“So, I know you were thinking about going to Canada,” she divulged immediately. Lucía leaned forward and ran her lips along Erin’s rounded cheek bone.
“It was more than a passing thought, Miss Lewis,” Lucía said in a throaty whisper, and suddenly Erin lost her feet from underneath her. Lucía had lifted her onto the desk.
A violent rush of heat rose to Erin’s face. “What if” –she brushed her lips against Lucía’s as she spoke— maybe we can go to New England.
Perhaps a couple hours outside Boston?” Her lips continued down the column of Lucía’s throat.
“Do you mean your father’s house?” Lucía’s eyes slipped closed.
“Not in his house.” She grinned when Lucía released the tiniest moan.
She loved upsetting the power balance between them. “There’s a farm for sale not that far from him. Out in the middle of nowhere. No one around for miles and miles.” The tip of her tongue ran up Lucía’s neck so she could whisper her words right in her ear.
“How resourceful of you to have found it,” Lucía teased.
Erin threw her head back and groaned when she felt her fangs cross her clavicle. “I get that you have to keep a low profile. I thought maybe I can still see my dad even if we can’t be traveling.” The words leaked out in unbalanced increments.
“I will look into it,” she replied. Lucía’s fingers tangled in messy blonde hair and pulled to expose Erin’s neck. She placed warm kisses along the column before reaching her trembling lips. “What if we brought your father with us?”
“What?” Erin forced her eyes open. She’d almost forgotten what they were discussing. “Bring him?” she repeated, still struggling to catch her breath. “How? What will I say?”
“Say what you must,” she shrugged, her hands gripping the tops of Erin’s thighs tightly.
“Okay.”
A growl rumbled deep in Lucía’s chest. Her hands moved more quickly than Erin’s mind could process. Before she knew it, she was against the desk, her chest pressed hard against the antique wood.
* * *
“You can skulk behind the door all night or you can come in,” Lucía called after listening to Charlie’s footsteps burning a hole in the floor outside her office. After a moment, the heavy wooden door creaked open, revealing a distraught Charlie. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping? We have a long day of traveling ahead,” Lucía said as she glanced at the time. The pre-dawn hours meant little to Lucía, but werewolves need rest.
“I can’t sleep,” she admitted.
“What troubles you?” she asked, closing her laptop and putting aside her search for properties in rural New England.
“Why do you want to go into hiding? This isn’t you.” Charlie blurted out hastily.
Lucía was only surprised that she waited this long to ask. “I recognize that this is difficult to understand.” Her words were laced with the patience usually only reserved for Erin. “But you know better than anyone that what we’re dealing with can’t be combated with conventional means.”
“Yes, but why should we hide like cowards?” Charlie demanded. “Let’s play into their game. Let’s prepare an ambush. They’re getting closer to you, right? So we open right up, let them think they got you, and then we
hit them with everything we’ve got!” Charlie grew frantic as she explained her plan.
“Charlie, how many more will die in the process?” Lucía asked, maintaining her low, even tone. “How many more evil deeds will be falsely attributed to me?”
“We’re soldiers, Lucía! If we die fighting, then so be it!” Charlie pleaded as she leaned forward in her chair.
“And what of the innocents caught in between?” Lucía asked calmly.
“How many more children will there be before they make their direct attack on me? Do you have any idea?” Her question was rhetorical, and it brought her point into focus. “They don’t just want to hurt me, Charlie. They want to destroy us by any means necessary. Are you willing to hold that weight on your shoulders?”
“I’m willing to fight,” Charlie declared as she stood.
“Will you not join us then?”
“I cannot hide,” she admitted quietly.
Lucía stood to lend some level of formality to the moment. “Then you will be second in command. You’ll have worked in concert with Samael and some others to oust me.” She walked around the front of her desk and extended her arm only to be attacked by a hug.
“Take care of my grandma, okay?” Charlie’s eyes filled with tears, but she disappeared into the hallway before they fell to her cheeks.
Lucía leaned back against the front of her desk. She had expected Charlie would resist going into hiding, but she hadn’t realized it would hurt quite so much.
* * *
“What do you mean, they weren’t there?” the angry voice boomed through the hall so loudly the bricks and mortar seem to shift. This was supposed to be the day that Lucía Guerra finally answered for her crimes.
“I-I don’t know. They were supposed to be there for three more days.”
The young man wiped the sweat from his brow using his palm, exposing the rounded black brand on his wrist. He tried to explain in rambling sentences that when he led his team of twenty through the vampire queen’s estate, there wasn’t a soul to be found. Even the full-time staff had disappeared.
“Stop your sniveling,” the voice exploded, causing three trained assassins to stand a little closer as if hoping for safety in numbers. “Where have they gone?”
The three men looked at each other, and the one standing slightly forward swallowed hard before answering. “We haven’t figured that out yet,” he admitted with a heavy tremble in his voice and a violent shaking in his knees.
There was a long pause. The seething rage was tangible like billowing smoke from an uncontrolled fire filling the room. The men stood together, awaiting their fates.
“Find her.” The deep growl made the threat clear. The punishment for failure would be their lives.
Chapter Twenty Two
“Dad?” Erin poked her head through the unlocked gate as her nose led her to the fire pit warming up the cool, fall evening.
“Erin?” Pete dropped his conversation with Gail and made a beeline for his daughter. “What are you doing here? What’s wrong?” His eyes darted all over Erin to see what physical harm there might be.
“Nice to see you too,” she said, forcing a laugh before hugging her dad.
“You know it’s nice to see you, honey, but I wasn’t expecting you,” Pete said, worry clear on his face.
“I’m okay, I promise. I came to say hello. Hi Gail!” Erin called to the woman loitering near the barbecue. She was suddenly very interested in greeting her dad’s girlfriend. Pete’s skeptical eyes followed Erin as she walked.
“Was it a long trip? Are you hungry?” Gail offered after they exchanged pleasantries.
“No, I’m okay, thanks,” Erin said with a smile despite her father’s intense glares, as if staring at her hard enough would allow him to read her mind. Under the weight of his stare, she admitted, “Listen, I, um, I came here for something.”
“What is it, kiddo?”
“I brought Lucía. I want you to meet her,” she explained, changing her mind on how to approach this.
“Is that why you’re shaking like a leaf!” Pete howled in relief with his hand to his chest. “Jesus Christ, honey, you almost killed me. I don’t even know what the hell I thought you were gonna say,” he said, pulling Erin into a hug. “Where is she?”
“In the car. Can we go inside?”
The trio walked into the house through the backdoor, and Erin continued on her own through the front. She took deep breaths as she crossed the long driveway and out to the street where the SUV waited.
“That was fast,” Lucía said, looking up from her phone.
“Change of plans,” Erin blurted. “I didn’t tell him. His girlfriend is there, and he was all freaked out,” she admitted, her face vacillating between bright pink and pale. “So, I, um…” Erin hesitated. Maybe one day this will make a hilarious story. Lucía’s eyes searched her expectantly. “So I told him we came to visit so he could meet you.” Her tone turned up at the end as if she were asking a question.
The forever unshakable Lucía slipped her phone into her trouser pocket.
“It would be rude to keep him waiting,” she announced before stepping out into the evening.
Silence followed them on their walk up the driveway. Erin had never brought anyone home to meet her dad before, which on its own would be plenty reason for racing nerves. She hadn’t even noticed Lucía take her hand until they stepped onto the porch.
“Do you need him to invite you in?” Erin asked in a panicked whisper, wondering how she could get her dad to do that. It would be weird for them to knock; the door was open and they would be expected to walk in.
The question, and the absurd terror in Erin’s eyes, produced a chuckle from the depths of Lucía’s chest.
“Lucía!” Pete swung the door open wide, a huge grin plastered on his face. “Welcome, please come in!” he continued much to Erin’s relief.
Lucía extended her hand as she crossed the threshold. “Thank you, Mr.
Lewis. It’s lovely to finally meet you.”
“Call me Pete,” he insisted, pulling Lucía in for a hug.
“You must be Gail.” Lucía smiled and put on her politician’s charm.
“Erin has told me so much about you.” The way Lucía gave Gail her undivided attention turned her face into a blushing red mess.
“Ha, well, she’s a sweet girl,” Gail said with a smile but didn’t spare Erin a glance.
“She certainly is,” Lucía echoed, sending a wink in Erin’s direction.
Pete stared quizzically back and forth between Erin and Lucía while his girlfriend engaged his guest in polite small talk.
“Dad?” Erin interrupted Pete’s gawking.
“Yes honey?” Pete snapped back to the present.
“Are you hungry? We’re just finishing up a brisket.” Gail looked only at Lucía.
“Yes,” Lucía responded with a sugary smile before Erin could decline.
“I’m famished. Thank you very much.”
Erin turned to Lucía in open skepticism, but neither Pete nor Gail seemed to notice. They were too busy hurrying outside to check on the food. “Make yourselves comfortable!” Pete called as he left.
“So what the hell was that?” Erin asked, realizing she had never seen Lucía interact with any human that didn’t work for her.
“What was what, my sweet?” Lucía asked innocently, leaning forward to kiss her cheek, but she backed away before she could make contact.
“Did you hypnotize her with your powers of seduction?” she asked with a scrunched-up face. She gasped in shock and asked, “Have you hypnotized me?”
“Hypnotize?” Lucía chuckled. “Dearest this is just me. I should really better inform you about my kind.”
“Well then, how do you explain a straight fifty-year-old woman being absolutely smitten with you?” she demanded incredulously.
“What can I say?” Lucía’s pearly white smile beamed. “I’m a delight,”
she explained with a shrug.
“You are the absolute worst.” Erin rolled her eyes.
* * *
Erin did her best not to look at Lucía while the four of them sat around the small square table enjoying friendly conversation. She never expected Lucía to seem so earthly and normal. She laughed at her dad’s terrible jokes and complimented Gail’s homemade green bean casserole as if it reminded her of the way her mom used to make it. Erin knew it was impossible, yet there was no trace of dishonesty in her enjoyment. Erin thought of how Lucía described what it was like for her to eat food and couldn’t imagine that she could feign such happiness at a bloody banquet. Oh this is delicious. Please pass the AB Negative. I can’t get enough! Erin put down her fork after successfully grossing herself out.
“So how long are you visiting?” Gail asked, steering the conversation away from more embarrassing stories about Erin’s teenage years.
“Just for dinner,” Erin piped up almost before Gail could finish her question.
