Fratelli: Eternal Bloodlines (The Vampire Cartel #2)

10. The Healing

Chapter 10

The Healing

C ircus Circus, Las Vegas - Nevada

April 17, 2018

(4 Days Before Death)

Sonya walked over and helped Nzinga with the luggage. Charmaine followed, but then stopped on the sidewalk. She glanced at those who hurried to escape the morning heat. Tourists left one casino and headed for a buffet or the next place of chance. Flyers of exotic dancers, escorts, and parties littered the ground. It was a typical morning in Vegas. Yet, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She couldn’t explain why. She scanned the streets for any threat. She noticed most people were in groups or couples and walked purposefully on the sidewalk, barely looking her way. Others gave her appreciative glances, but they didn’t seem threatening. Yet, her gut told her someone or some thing watched her.

Then she saw him. How she missed him before, she didn’t know. A man with a hood and gloves stood across the street. He made no effort to conceal himself, and she could hardly see his face. He stared directly at her. She blinked as the clouds drifted and the sun shone into her eyes. Shielding her vision, she tried to see him, really see him. If she saw his face, she’d know. Even though American horror movies had taught her the daytime was often the safest, she knew the truth and could not turn away. What if he were a vampire? What if he was worse than a vampire? The man did not move.

“Go inside,” said a voice in her head. The warning in the tone of that voice startled Charmaine. It had to be her inner self speaking, but it didn’t feel like it. She listened. She turned and followed her friend, careful to not look back.

Nzinga was at the front desk. Sonya looked back at Charmaine with a worried frown. “Where were you?”

“Huh? Oh… outside, I saw someone or thing. I think,” she said.

“Yeah, well, this place stinks,” Sonya said. “Nzinga needs to hurry the hell up and answer my questions.”

“You talked to her?” Charmaine asked.

“She’s going to tell us what happened. Enough of this silent treatment bullshit. I feel like an idiot, following these ‘first people’ and letting them experiment on us. Look at you. Look at me. This is not normal.”

“Something went wrong in that forest. Not just with us, but with them. Do you feel it? This bad, sadness, to everything,” Sonya asked.

Charmaine rubbed her arms. “Yeah, well, not exactly. I feel watched. I see so many people staring. You see it?”

Sonya looked around at the old smokers, the drunks, the tired gambling junkies who never slept and stayed rooted to a slot machine. “Where? Who?”

“Everywhere,” Charmaine mumbled.

There were a few men seated at the slot machines. And others at roulette tables. Few glanced their way. One man gave Charmaine a toothless smile.

“Yeah, well, I see nothing,” Sonya said.

“It’s weird in here, and cold. Freezing?”

“Oh God, don’t flip out on me Char, let’s get to the room first. We’ll figure it out,” Sonya mumbled.

“Sorry. Not sure what is wrong with me. I’m okay. Okay.” Charmaine talked herself down from a full-blown panic attack. You’re doing fine , said her inner voice. A warm soothing swept up from her feet to the top of her head. It spread through her like liquid magic. She exhaled and felt herself release the pent-up anxiety trapped in her chest.

Nzinga approached the girls with room keys. “I got three separate rooms on three separate floors, Guardians. I think we should stay in one room together, for security. Not because of a threat, but to make sure we are always connected, and no one tracks you, Guardians. Greenlee, before we arrived, during the planning for your return, my Guardians, had the hotel sealed. The supernatural’s you may encounter here are allies. The others can’t enter. This is a safe place. Those who wish to harm or serve the darkness cannot breach this hotel. Except for the Master Vampires, of course. I am honored to serve you, and hopefully regain your trust.”

The girls looked at each other, dumbfounded. Then they stared at Nzinga as if she were crazy.

“Circus Circus, is the First People hotel? Sounds about, right?” Sonya rolled her eyes.

“Stop with the Guardian stuff, Nzinga. You know damn well we are not Guardians.” Sonya looked around. “So, you are friends with the monsters? They are in here with us. We will hide from them in different rooms, just in case they turn on us, but the hotel is safe?”

“Every relationship between darkness and light has its risks. This is a precaution. We are defenseless against the brothers. The hierarchy of the vampire coven wants you divided if they ever learn you exist. That is why we unite this way and we strike first. Having three rooms will throw off your scent.”Nzinga bowed her head in respect. “Follow me, ladies.”

Nzinga walked away. Charmaine stepped to her friend’s side. They gave each other another look and followed her through the casino, pulling their luggage behind them.Charmaine continued to suffer through pangs of unease. Not just by the strangeness with Nzinga, and the zombie-like stares of men in the casino, but the strangeness within her. Sonya had changed as well. First, Sonya’s temper was never easily cooled. And her friend would never step inside such a bottom-level hotel. Yet she barely objected to their circumstances.

“You see those guys over there watching us?” Charmaine said to Sonya, now slowing her walk.

“I see them. They’re not looking at us. They’re checking you out, Char.”

“Huh? Checking me out?” Charmaine frowned.

“Look at you. Girl, you make me hot,” Sonya said. “C’mon.”

“What?” Charmaine looked down at herself and then glanced at the mirrored wall to her left. The woman who stared back at her shocked her. She looked different, but not in a deceitful way. She was still Charmaine, just far more polished than she realized.

“What the hell is happening to us?” Charmaine mumbled.

“I wish I had my phone,” Sonya replied when Charmaine caught up. “I checked in the car. I can’t even call my contacts in Vegas to tell them I’m in town.”

“Why would you? We have what we need—,” Charmaine said.

“We need an escape plan. Do you think I’m going to trust Nzinga with all her bow down to the Guardians’ crap? And where the hell are the First People? If this is their hotel, where are they? I just want to get to the room and get some answers. Plus, my head is killing me.”

Charmaine nodded. “Yeah, I was wondering why you are going along with all of this. You seem pretty cool right now. Is it the headache?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I’m pissed, but I’m not. I want to go, but I don’t. I want answers, but I think we should be patient. Crazy, right?” Sonya frowned. “I think I’m losing my mind, actually. This fucking headache.”

They boarded the elevator with Nzinga and found the first room for the night. There was only a king-sized bed. Charmaine frowned. “Ugh, how are we going to make this work? We can’t all stay in one room with one bathroom.”

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Nzinga said with respect as she took their luggage. The girls stood dumbfounded. When Nzinga turned, she removed her sunglasses for the first time and then lowered her hood. Charmaine gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth. Sonya took a step back, her eyes wide with shock.

The beating Nzinga had endured was more savage than they could have imagined. How she could walk, talk, and even speak through it all was astounding. One eye was shut, swollen. It bulged with bruises. The other eye was bloodshot, as if the blood vessels had burst. Her face was marred with knots the size of gumballs, and choking marks covered her neck. Bruises ran up and down her arms. Without hesitation, Nzinga began to undress completely.

“What happened to you?” Sonya asked with a shaken voice full of fear.

Nzinga lowered her head in shame. “If you sit, I will explain.”

The girls were too terrified and confused to object. They sat on the bed and watched in stunned silence as Nzinga removed the rest of her clothing. Stripped down to her bra and panties, she was covered from head to toe in bruises, cuts, and scratches that looked like they came from some kind of lashing. It was horrifying to witness such savagery inflicted on a woman.

It was then that Nzinga shared her strange and traumatic experience. They had performed the ritual, and adhered to the teachings of Greenlee, who had been responsible for the failed attempt on Wanda Brown to turn her baby twins into the Chosen while they were forming in her uterus. After the ceremonial cleansing, the followers of the First People performed the same ritual on Charmaine and Sonya. They painted their bodies with hieroglyphs. The girls were given a drink meant to relax them for the painful rites of passage. Soon after taking it, they slipped into a trance-like state.

Greenlee did her best to resurrect the guardians. Her goal was to honor the old customs as much as possible. She believed she had learned her lesson from the failed attempts to instill both light and darkness into Wanda. They all believed they had succeeded.

As Nzinga spoke, the vivid and brutal reality of the ritual unfolded. The paintings on the girls’ bodies were not just symbols but conduits for ancient powers. Both Sonya and Charmaine were set on fire—or what appeared to be fire to Nzinga—by the hieroglyphs that suddenly became scorching hot. The drink they consumed was more than a sedative; it was a potion designed to open their minds to the otherworldly forces they were about to inherit.

In their trance, Charmaine and Sonya screamed in agony over the transformation. Twice, Nzinga wept over the torturous way their bodies burned, but Greenlee refused to stop the ceremony. She told all the women gathered that the sacrifice Charmaine and Sonya endured would be worth it.

And then Greenlee got scared. It was going on too long; the girls suffered with no results. Everyone felt a presence, a cold, dark force that wrapped around them like a suffocating shroud. Julia Brown is the name Greenlee said joined them. Whatever Julia Brown had done with her hoodoo magic had corrupted the ritual, and Greenlee realized the girls weren’t becoming but dying. She had failed again. They were being sacrificed to the hoodoo gods. The ritual’s intensity increased, and the pain became death cries. Greenlee chanted in a forgotten language and called forth the guardians with an urgency that echoed through the tent to save Sonya and Charmaine from the mistakes of the forsaken. She begged with her life for their return to protect the innocent.

The light left the room completely except for their burning bodies. The fire Sonya and Charmaine released caused shadows to dance over the tent walls, and a chilled wind came from nowhere, cooling their suffering. The guardians began to manifest, their forms barely visible but their presence unmistakable. It was miraculous! The air grew thick with an oppressive energy that weighed heavily on everyone present.

Nzinga described how Greenlee’s face contorted with fear and determination. She had underestimated the power she tried to control. The guardians were not pleased to find Sonya and Charmaine’s charred bodies and torturous painful deaths still pending. They weren’t pleased with being disturbed, and their wrath was unimaginable. As the ritual reached its climax, Charmaine and Sonya’s bodies convulsed, and their minds teetered on the edge of erasure for sanity. They healed. The Guardians took control.

“Then, it became a bloodbath for me and my sisters,” said Nzinga. “Those of us able to kneel tried too, but the Guardians swept through us all and delivered tenfold the suffering that had been put upon us. Before I lost my life, I begged to serve as Greenlee taught me. I begged to save Greenlee. I am here because of their forgiveness and grace at that moment.”

Nzinga’s story left the room in stunned silence. The girls’ ordeal was beyond anything they had ever imagined, and the reality of their situation sunk in. The ritual had changed them. It had bonded them to the guardians in ways they did not yet understand.