CHAPTER 1 #2
He stepped into a hallway that smelled of spilled tequila. The music was still loud but grew muffled as the corridor cut to the right. Lalo stopped just before a door that was slightly ajar. Candles flickered from sconces on the papered walls.
Am I really going to do this? he asked himself.
What other choice did he have? Lalo hadn’t known a moment of peace since that dreadful night.
He was constantly peering over his shoulder.
He didn’t dare let his sister out of his sight if they had errands to run after sundown.
Killing Maricela was the only way to end his suffering.
He would not let another child become orphaned like him.
He wanted to take down every vampiro in this cantina.
Though, that sounded rather impossible, especially considering he’d never even been in a scuffle before.
But if he had proof of at least one vampiro’s existence, he could go back to the authorities.
They would have to come to the cantina and exterminate the rest of the foul beasts themselves.
He stuck his hand into the inner pocket of his coat. His fingers wrapped around the wood he had painstakingly sharpened, and he tugged it free. Time to end this now.
“Searching for someone?” a sultry voice queried from behind.
Lalo spun around.
His eyes widened.
Maricela stood before him. Her posture was perfect.
Her demeanor was refined. No one would believe such a poised woman capable of the terrors Lalo had seen her inflict.
That was the way of un vampiro, he’d discovered.
They disarmed their victims with false humanity.
But there was nothing human about the woman before him.
She was a predator, hunting for hearts to devour like Tecuani.
“Pray tell.” She gestured toward the stake in Lalo’s hand. “What do you plan on doing with that toothpick in your grasp?”
Lalo raised the weapon in question. He could only pray she didn’t notice how much it quivered because of his shaking hand. “Do not come near me, fiend. This is willow root, and I know how to use it.”
He didn’t. Not in the slightest. The only semblance of a weapon he knew how to wield were the knives he used to slice through seasoned meat at the dinner table.
“What have I done to deserve such vitriol? To be called a fiend in my own home,” she asked, smiling as if this were an amusing game to be played.
“You took my parents from me. You ruined my life.”
“I’ve ruined many lives. That is how I stay so beautiful.” She batted her lashes. “I’ll offer you a bit of comfort, senor. If your parents looked anything like you, I’m certain they tasted divine.”
Her tongue slithered over her front teeth, stopping at the fangs that had elongated to dangerously sharp points.
His insides quaked. Why in the stars did he think coming here was a good idea?
That had perhaps been the problem. He wasn’t thinking and simply acted.
He wasn’t typically impulsive. Gods, if he died tonight, his sister would reach into his grave and throttle him.
That could not happen. He wouldn’t allow Fernanda to live in this world with no family. With no one to care for her. She was only seventeen, and her prospects had stopped calling when he’d become the boy who cried vampiro.
Lalo lunged, thrusting his weapon toward Maricela’s heart. The vampiro simply swatted his hand, and the stake thumped to the floor.
Maricela glared at him, a dangerous growl emanating from her throat.
He spun, trying to flee, realizing he’d made a grave mistake, but something hit him, and his back slammed against the wall.
Bits of dust and plaster smattered over his hair and fell into his mouth.
He coughed, but it was cut off by Maricela’s palm, pressed into his chest. Her other hand shoved his head to the side, exposing his neck.
“No,” he managed. He tried his best to fight her off, but she was like a statue, hard and unshakable. Vampiros were strongest after they drank human blood. Maricela must have had a feast because her skin was like marble.
She opened her maw.
“No,” Lalo whispered. “No. No. No!”
Sharp fangs pierced into his flesh. The sudden shock of pain clogged the scream bubbling up his throat. Just as quickly as it came, the ache dissolved away, and Lalo couldn’t feel anything from his shoulders to his toes.
Saliva, his mind screamed. Her saliva is dulling your senses.
Her teeth sank deeper, and his eyes rolled back.
Images of his life flashed before him. Holding his mother’s hand as a boy.
Clapping when his baby sister took her first steps.
The joy of finding a good book. The heartache of being left to his own devices as his parents gallivanted about the city, bouncing to whichever gala or ball or exhibit was hosted by the most popular socialite that week.
He saw the night they died. Saw Maricela’s jaw clamping down upon his father’s throat.
Lalo watched the memories of him trying to tell the officials what he had witnessed.
They laughed him off. Told him to stay away from horror novels.
He saw himself in the library day and night, searching for clues about what he had seen.
Then he saw himself moments ago, speaking to the woman with the out-of-fashion gown.
He heard his own thoughts, contemplating how he’d slay the vampiros within the cantina.
Maricela tore away from him. Her irises blazed molten red. “You came here to kill my children. You thought you’d harm my beloveds?”
“You took my family first!” he cried. “You are draining my life force as we speak! Shouldn’t I be the one who’s angry?”
She sneered. “I will make you pay for your insolence, Eduardo Villalobos.”
Lalo’s eyes widened. “How do you know my name?”
“Blood reveals all.” She leaned forward, her lips brushing against his ear.
“Now that I have tasted you, I know everything. I have seen your innermost thoughts. I know your dreams and nightmares. I could go on, but I won’t because punishment awaits you.
Perhaps I should start with that pretty sister of yours. ”
No. He had to get away. He had to get back to Fernanda. “If you let me go,” he wheezed, “I’ll never return. I promise.”
A rumbling laugh emanated from Maricela. “You know too much. You have seen my home. My children. There must be consequences to your actions. You are a smart boy, you understand this, no?”
“Please…I cannot die.”
She brushed a nail down his cheek. “You will die, Lalo. But fear not, your death won’t come tonight. I want you to suffer first. I want you to feel what I feel.”
“What? No…please…”
“We can be fiends together.” She gripped him by the hair and dragged his body into the darkness. He screamed for help; he begged for mercy. Instead, he found agony.
Lalo stumbled down the cobblestone walkway in the middle of the night. Half tripping, half running home. He dug his trembling hand into his pocket, fumbling through lint and who-knew-what before he wrapped his blood-soaked fingers around the key. He tried to disengage the lock but winced.
Everything was so excruciatingly loud.
The key scraping against the metal mechanisms within the deadbolt. The babe crying five doors down. The damn moth bumping against the lantern glass above his head. Every sound burrowed into his skull and grated against his brain.
A rodent scuttled across the road to his right, and Lalo nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Shit,” he whispered.
He rarely cursed, but he figured he was owed this vice after everything he’d just been through.
Closing his eyes, he forced his breathing to calm, his mind to stop racing. He needed to focus on one simple task: opening the door.
When he heard a soft click, he let loose a sigh.
The familiar scents of his past and present kissed his senses.
The tallow polishes his father used on his boots.
The citrus soaps his sister loved but only because their mother loved them first. Lalo breathed in deep. He never thought he’d see home again.
He glanced over his shoulder, eyeing the empty road, before shutting the door behind him.
He rested his head on the cool wood. His sticky fingers splayed over the frame etched with his and Fernanda’s height measurements from a childhood that no longer seemed real.
The room was blessedly dark, concealing his sins within the shadows.
“Get out of my house!” a familiar voice screamed.
Lalo had but a second to duck before a fire poker smashed into the wooden frame where his head had just been.
“Get out of my house, thief!” his sister shrieked, readying to clobber him.
“It’s me!” Lalo yelled. “Fernanda, it’s me!”
“Lalo?” She lowered her arms but kept a tight hold on the fire poker.
“Yes!” he replied.
Though there wasn’t a single candle lit, Lalo could see his sister clearly.
Her almond-shaped eyes, green like their mother’s.
Her small nose and angular face, similar to their father’s.
She and Lalo shared the same warm brown skin and slender builds but that was where their resemblances ended.
She was always laughing and talking to anyone who passed by.
He was rather moody and preferred the company of the characters in books over actual friends.
Surprise flickered over Fernanda’s features. Then came relief. And next rage.
“Where have you been?” she asked, seething. “I haven’t heard a single word from you in three days! I searched everywhere. The library. The courthouse. The church. Father’s business. Nada. Where were you?”
Three days? Was that all? It had felt like a lifetime. Like three lifetimes.
“I have to tell you something, Fernanda, but promise to stay calm.”
“That statement alone has my heart rate rising.”
She wasn’t lying. He could hear her pulse thumping against her neck. Could smell her blood rushing through her veins. His mouth watered.
“Oh gods,” he said, feeling the bile climb up his throat. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he whispered.
“What, Lalo? What is happening? Tell me now, or I will thump you with this poker.” She shook the metal bar in her hand for proof.
He didn’t doubt she would. She once threw a boot at him when he didn’t tell her who asked about her in the market fast enough.
“We must leave,” he said. “Right now.”
Her features twisted with confusion. “What?”
“I need you to pack whatever you can. Take our most valuable items. I’ll send a note to Father’s advisors that we are going on sabbatical, and I’ll figure everything else out later. But right now, we must get out of Los Campos.”
“Lalo, what happened? What did you do?”
His mouth went dry. “I went to the cantina I told you about,” he admitted.
Fernanda’s jaw dropped. “You cannot be serious.”
“I wish I wasn’t.” Saints, what he wouldn’t do to take the last few days back.
“Why are you so insistent on torturing yourself? Whoever or whatever killed Mother and Father is gone.”
“She was there,” he whispered. “I saw her with my own eyes. She was exactly the beast I remember. They are real, Fernanda. Fucking vampiros are real. And we need to get out of the city. Now.”
Even though they were draped in darkness, Lalo could see his sister’s face go pale. “Can’t we go to the authorities? Perhaps the militia? Surely there is someone who will help us.”
“There is no one who will save us now. Do you remember how I told you they need human life to survive? I was right. But it isn’t solely the blood.
It’s the existence within it. The memories.
The joy. The pain. The life. All of it. That monster bit me.
She saw me through my blood. Every thought I’ve ever had.
Every book and journal I’ve read. She knows everything.
She saw my research. Our family. This house.
She drank and drank, and I could do nothing to stop her until I was no more. ”
“What does that even mean?” Fernanda’s voice was shrill.
“I am dead!” he yelled. “I died, Fernanda. That miserable beast killed me!”
“You aren’t making any sense. You are alive, Lalo. I’m speaking with you right now.”
“I have been turned, Fernanda. I’m a monster.”
She shook her head. “That cannot be true. You seem fine.”
Fernanda snatched up a matchbox from a nearby table.
“Don’t!” he shouted. He couldn’t let her see him like this.
His sister raised her brow and did as she wanted, like she always did. She struck the match and lit the candlewick. A small flame flickered to life. Lalo hissed at the sudden brightness and tucked his face behind his arm.
His sister gasped, and his heart sank.
“Your hands,” she whispered. “Your clothes.”
Lalo turned away from her and examined his arms. The sleeves of his coat were torn to shreds. And his palms were still stained with blood and the mysterious inky gore that spilled from vampiros’ veins.
“Whose blood is that?” Fernanda asked.
Hot tears filled his eyes. “Everyone’s.”