The Damned (28 page)

L
AS VEGAS
A
NTONIO,
A
URORA, AND
E
STEFAN

Antonio couldn’t remember ever feeling so weak before. He had lost track of how many times Aurora had cut and stabbed him during the last twenty-four hours. She had offered him blood in a goblet, only to yank it whenever he tried to drink. His thirst was unbearable. Antonio had been fasting while he was praying and working with Heather, so he hadn’t fed in nearly two weeks. It had been stupid. Father Juan had warned him against that.

Without feeding, a vampire’s ability to heal himself slowed more and more, until the need to feed was completely overwhelming, and the self-preservation instinct kicked in.

Antonio was starting to fantasize about biting Aurora and draining her blood, and that wasn’t good.

L
AS
V
EGAS
T
EAM
S
ALAMANCA
M
INUS
A
NTONIO

When the radio alarm went off, Jenn lay still for a moment, wishing for a little more sleep. A country song played, one that had been old when she’d been young. It was cut off suddenly in a hiss of static, and it gave way to a male voice.

“This is our country, and we must fight to take it back. Those who didn
’
t believe must now realize that the human population of New Orleans has been devastated and that those who remain are starving to death.”

Jenn sat up and turned up the volume. The voice continued.
“The city is lost, but we will take a stand elsewhere. I call upon all of you, for now is the time. We will not win this war and our freedom if we do not. In the west, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Seattle are already lost to us. In the east, Newark, Detroit, Boston, and Charleston have fallen. There is still time to stop the same from happening to San Diego, Portland, Chicago, and New York. Resist always. The Cursed Ones must be stopped. This is the Resistance, and we need your help.”

There was another burst of static, and the country song was back, winding to a close. Jenn sat with her heart pounding. So, “Kent” was still broadcasting. She had heard him when she was in New Orleans.

There has to be some way to reach out to him.

“What’s going on?” Holgar asked, standing in the doorway, yawning and stretching.

She took a deep breath. “Wake the others. We’re going to a magick show.”

Eriko couldn’t help but feel little ripples of excitement and nostalgia as they entered the spacious “Temple of Myth,” which was decorated like a Grecian temple. She was going out, like in the old days. Like when she was young and carefree.

“Look at this,” Skye murmured. “It’s incredible.”

White marble pillars disappeared into the “sky”—cloud-shaped objects made of gossamer material that periodically puffed out mist scented with exotic spices. A huge illuminated moon hung from invisible wires.

Long marble tables seating six on a side were decorated with white candles inside Grecian-style braziers. On the walls, the large silver masks that traditionally represented comedy and tragedy bore an additional detail—long fangs protruding from the laughing and weeping mouths.

The stage was a concave semicircle decorated with Greek statues standing in various poses on pedestals. In the center of the stage sat an alabaster bowl as big as the family
ofuro
at home—the traditional hot bath where one could melt one’s cares away. She thought of how wonderful it would be to lie back in a super-hot bath and rest her sore joints and aching muscles.

She thought of Kyoto. Back when she was fourteen, her plan had been to train at home, in Kyoto, to become the Hunter there. In retrospect she was glad that her father had refused to let her go, insisting that the honor be reserved for his only son, not his daughter. Had she become the Hunter of Kyoto, she would have quickly realized her motivations were purely personal, and her parents, used to indulging and spoiling her, might have encouraged her to quit. In Salamanca she had found her true purpose—not to avenge her best friend, but to rid the world of vampires.

Anger and a desire for revenge had pushed her out her front door, and she hadn’t spoken to her parents—or to her brother, Kenji—in two and a half years. She didn’t even know if Kenji, a fellow Hunter, was still alive.

Maybe It’s time to find out
, she thought
.
It was almost as if Japan had ceased to exist for her. That was deliberate, she knew. She had needed space from everyone who had known her then. After what had happened . . . She stared into the flames, and remembered.

K
YOTO,
J
APAN,
F
OUR
Y
EARS
E
ARLIER
E
RIKO,
Y
UKI, AND
M
ARA

“Vampire boys are cutest,” the Vampire Three sang in Japanese. Eriko, Yuki, and Mara were singing their latest song for an admiring throng on Eigamura Sunday. Eigamura was a combination Japanese movie lot and theme park, like the American Universal Studios, only a little less grand—okay, a
lot less
grand—and on Sundays pop groups performed in front of its gates. Sometimes inside, too.

“Vampire boys are sweet!” they trilled in their high, girlish, voices, Eriko posing with her hands folded over her heart, Yuki pointing to her mouth, Mara tapping the fake vampire bites on her neck. All three thrust their hips to the left in time to their recorded music.

The Vampire Three were dressed in their anime vampire schoolgirl finery—starched short skirts with red ruffles, knee socks decorated with little red hearts, and two tiny hearts on each of their necks, fangs’-width apart. They danced in a little circle and showed off their white satin bloomers. Their audience—lots of girls, and guys, too—clapped along. There were at least five hundred people there—the Vampire Three was the big draw.

“They are sugar hearts!” their fans yelled, singing along.

“True love, true love, vampire boys!” the Vampire Three trilled.

Cell phones were raised high as people recorded them. The Vampire Three was all for it. Eriko blew kisses to the crowd. Red plastic vampire bats holding sparkly hearts dangled from her ponytails. Her lips were bright red, like her nails, and she had on lots of makeup, almost like a geisha. All three of them had learned how to style themselves to look super good for YouTube. They had dreams of landing a big recording contract, maybe even a TV series. Their social-network pages were getting more and more hits. Along with their own poetry—Eriko wrote a lot of vampire haiku—they were posting tons of fan art, both pictures of themselves and ones cute boy vampires e-mailed to them.

On Friday they were finally going to meet their biggest vampire fan, a “Cute One” who called himself Shell Ghost Shogun. And he
was
cute. He had long black hair pulled up and back like a samurai, almond-shaped eyes the color of cherries, and
dimples.
He was going to send a limo to their favorite club, Missing Dreams. Was that not the most amazing, coolest thing in all of Japan?

Dead.

But on Friday, Yuki didn’t show for the date with Shell Ghost Shogun. She was missing. No one was looking very hard to find her.

Dead.

Eriko and Mara started failing all their classes because they ditched school all the time to look for Yuki. So Eriko’s parents
grounded
her. Eriko wouldn’t even speak to them. She snuck out anyway searching in the rain, wailing at the gates of Eigamura.

Dead.

The fans of the Vampire Three held vigils and sent letters of hope and poems to the website. Eriko and Mara kept searching, looking, asking.

Dead.

Then Eriko found Yuki.

Eriko was Skyping with Mara, which they had to do since they were grounded, and both of them were freaking out because someone had killed Eriko’s mom’s cat, Nekko. The message was clear:
Stop asking questions about Yuki
Eriko was sobbing; Mara was swearing revenge.

Then, on the webcam behind Mara, Yuki appeared. She was dressed in white, and she staggered forward, hunched over with her long black hair in her face like a Japanese ghost. She swayed as she walked—no, lurched. Then she gazed up over Mara’s shoulder into the camera with her bright red eyes, and grinned, revealing her fangs.

“Mara! Mara!” Eriko screamed, but it was too late.

Eriko watched—

She still had nightmares about it. Eriko never looked at the Vampire Three website again. Naive, gullible. Eriko hated herself for a long time.

But in the beginning she, Yuki, and Mara had had such
dreams
. . . .

“Those statues are alive,” Skye murmured to Eriko. “Well, sort of alive. They’re vampires.”

Eriko studied them. Dressed in Grecian robes, wearing their human faces, they were unmoving. Of course they didn’t have to breathe, which could have been a giveaway for a human “living statue.”

“We’ll have to be careful, then,” Eriko whispered to her. Vampires had acute senses, able to overhear conversations most humans couldn’t. Because of the elixir Eriko’s senses were more developed than most humans’, and matched some vampires’. Holgar was similarly favored. But not Jamie and Jenn. Nor Skye, unless she used her scrying stone.

They both turned around casually in their seats, spotting Jenn, who was sitting with Holgar, and Jamie, who was off by himself, chatting up the sexy woman beside him. Jamie was wearing a black V-neck sweater and black jeans, stark against his nearly bald head and tattoos. He and the woman, who was wearing a slinky red tank top and black leather trousers, were laughing together, and Eriko was startled by how charming Jamie appeared. She knew he had a crush on her, but he was such a . . . a
barbarian
. Rough, sarcastic, quick to anger. She couldn’t imagine being Jamie’s girlfriend . . . even if it did bother her a tiny bit, perhaps, to watch him having fun with someone else.

Still, she had to admire his hatred of the Cursed Ones. It was simple. Pure. And this new world was anything but.

She started to say something to Skye, then blinked at Skye’s expression of longing, aimed in Jamie’s direction.
No way
, Eriko thought, and was glad for the distraction when a waitress appeared to take their order.

“Cokes for both of us,” Eriko said quickly, not wanting the waitress to card either of them. She hoped Jamie and Holgar, both Europeans used to ordering alcohol, would remember that in America the legal drinking age was twenty-one. Although not one of them was old enough to drink, all of them had killed vampires.

Taamir and Noah had opted out of the magick show, doing recon on their own. Jenn had neither given them permission nor objected to their decision. Eriko understood; Jenn hadn’t really assumed command of the extended group. It was an uncomfortable place to be in, and Eriko was so relieved to be free of it.

Noah seems to like Jenn a lot. It would be much better if he took Antonio’s place in her heart. Maybe Jenn will turn to him for comfort if we can’t get Antonio back.

The audience was exotic, upscale. Eriko had never been to Las Vegas before, but she’d seen YouTube, and the nightlife appeared to be much fancier since the vampires had taken over. Maybe you had to be rich to dare going out at night. Maybe the humans bought some kind of protection. Away from the glittering lights it might be a different story.

As she scanned the crowd, Eriko noted some beautifully dressed Japanese girls in tiny minis making room for a Japanese man who had his back to her. His black hair was long, and he was dressed in a fashionable black silk jacket and nicely cut trousers. The girls were giggling and toasting his arrival with what looked like champagne, and she felt a wash of longing for everything that had been taken from her. She’d been a girl like that, carefree, with lots of spending money and pretty friends.

Dead.

The Cokes arrived, watered down and filled with ice. Eriko tried to hold her glass gently, lest she shatter it with her strong grip. She was verging on a migraine headache—a new affliction. So far, muscular aches and joint pain had served as her companions, but not headaches. She wondered if it meant that the elixir was affecting her brain. Had Father Juan known that it would hurt her like this? And given it to her anyway?

Who is he? Who is he, really?

“Ladies and gentlemen, and everything in between,”
a voice boomed.
“Welcome to our Magickal Temple of Myth!”

Pan pipes and strings played over the audience as the large moon and the glowing clouds burst apart and new white statues swung from silver trapeze swings and silk ropes. As the onlookers applauded, each figure opened a hand, and a small pillar of fire appeared in his or her palm, then disappeared. Next came a bubble of red light that burst, shooting red liquid—blood?—toward the audience. Startled shrieks burst from the lips of the well-dressed; then the liquid disappeared.

“Gods or magicians? Magicians or . . . magickal beings?” the
voice pondered.

The room plunged into darkness. Music swelled. Then, no more than five seconds later, the stage was lit up by huge, fire-blazing pillars that stood in blocks of steaming ice. The statues circled them in a stately dance. A figure appeared, poised high above the stage, wrapped in white swaths of silk, posed with its arms extended to each side, Christ-like. It wore a skullcap, and its eyes were closed. Its features were smooth, and there was no way to tell if it was male or female; it seemed to be wearing some kind of bodysuit.