Vampire Miami (12 page)

Selah tried to move quickly but cautiously. She
paused at street corners and examined the intersections, searching
for movement. Kept glancing behind her. At one point she heard
footsteps echoing her own, overlapping with hers briefly before
becoming discordant once more. She whirled around but had seen
nobody. Heart hammering, she stepped into a doorway and strained to
hear something, any sign of pursuit. Silence. She tested the door
behind her and found it to be unlocked. Tentatively, she cracked it
open and from within the small little house stole a rich, rotten
smell, something meaty and spoiled. She closed the door carefully,
and then sprinted from the doorway, running for two blocks before
spinning around again. Nothing. Paranoia fought terror in her
heart, and she spent five minutes standing still, a fine sheen of
sweat on her brow, until, with great reluctant, she continued on.
She didn’t hear the footsteps again.

It was fully dark when Selah reached the
address. She had no idea as to the time—she could even be early.
Her nerves were taut, and she crouched in a doorway for a good five
minutes that felt like thirty, just studying the area as best she
could in the dark. There were no streetlights here, and though the
moon was visible just over the horizon to the east, it was still
too low to help out.

Her destination was a beautifully painted
building across the street set next to a tiny park. The building
was a blocky single-story rectangle, and she could barely make out
the dim mural that had been painted across its front, a psychedelic
imagining of blues that might’ve been the ocean, might’ve been the
weave of a doll’s hair. A small boat floated on it, filled with
absurd-looking people.

This was it. Time to go in. Everything was
silent. Taking a deep breath, Selah ghosted forward, across the
street and then down the sidewalk to the front door. It was once
glass, but the panes were shattered and only the black iron frame
remained. Glass crunched underfoot. She peered inside. It was like
looking down a well, pitch black with a sense of depth, of high
ceilings and distant walls. Nervous, mouth dry, she pushed open the
iron frame and stepped inside, into the dark. It was like stepping
off the edge of a cliff and into the void.

“Hello?” Her voice echoed slightly. Her eyes,
already used to the night, began to acclimate to this deeper
darkness, and she saw glass glinting along the far left wall,
bottles and perhaps mirrors arrayed behind a bar. The depths to her
right extended far away. “Anybody here?”

A lighter flickered to life, and a long tongue
of yellow flame sprang into existence to her left. She started and
stared, eyes wide, and felt a wave of relief as she recognized the
face illuminated from beneath in a Halloween-special kind of way.
It was the guy from her Garden, her Resistance connection. He
looked serious, solemn, and behind him a dozen bottles set on glass
shelving glimmered as they reflected the light of his flame.

“Hey,” he said. “Selah. You sure you weren’t
followed?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m pretty sure.”

He nodded and gestured for her to approach. She
did so, reaching out blindly with her hands, knocking a chair over
as she did so, bumping around a square table. At last she reached
what turned out to be a bar, found a high seat, and sat.

“My name’s Fox,” he said.

“Fox?”

Fox looked annoyed. “It’s my codename. We’ve all
got one. It helps keep us safe, you know. In case one of us gets
grabbed and is forced to talk.”

“Oh,” she said. “Should I have one?”

“Maybe,” he said. “But let’s hold off on that.”
He leaned against the bar, arms folded. He was skinny, she saw, and
not as tall as she’d imagined. He studied her face. “So tell me
what brought you here.”

“Here tonight?”

“No, to Miami.”

“Oh,” said Selah. “Um.” She held onto the bar
and spun her seat a little from side to side until she caught him
watching and stopped. This was it. She was almost too scared to
ask. To hit another dead end. “I’m from Brooklyn. My father
disappeared about two months ago. He’s a reporter with the
New
York Times,
and I think he was arrested for investigating
something he shouldn’t have. I did everything I could think of to
find out what happened to him, but nobody would tell me anything.
It’s like he just vanished. But I found these files of his that
told me what he had been investigating, and so instead of going
into foster care, I decided to follow the Treaty’s extradition laws
and asked the court to assign me to my grandmother’s custody here
in Miami. So they flew me down and bused me in. My grandmother’s in
a building called the Palisades. You know it?”

He nodded, though she thought he might simply be
trying to look knowledgeable. “Sure, I know it. But why did you
come here? What was your dad investigating?”

Selah took the plunge. “Blood Dust. You heard of
it?”

Fox pursed his lips, and then nodded.
“Sure.”

“You do?” The relief was giddying. “What do you
know? I’ve got some names I want to learn more about, like a
Colonel Caldwell? I figure, if I can find the person who dad pissed
off, then I can start working my way—“

“Whoa, hold up. Slow down. Let’s take this one
step at a time.” Fox shifted uneasily. “What exactly happened last
night?”

Selah reined in her enthusiasm.
One step at a
time
. So she told him. Maria Elena, the ride to the Beach,
dancing with the Dragon, recording with her Omni. How the Dragon
had possibly bailed her out despite Hector’s wishes. What had
sounded outrageous last night by the ocean with Maria Elena sounded
terrifying tonight here in the dark, especially when Fox recoiled
at her mention of the Dragon.

“No shit. He helped you out? That’s a freaking
first. He’s a monster. He’s responsible for killing a whole bunch
of us.”

“Really?” Maria Elena’s words came back to her.
“Have you guys thought about killing him?”

“Well, no,” said Fox. “Not really. We’re not
into violence. Cloud’s all about electronic rebellion. He says that
violence begets violence, and that if we started killing off
vampires, they’d just crack down on us and make everybody’s life
hell. So we just try to avoid him.”

Selah nodded. She’d studied Gandhi and Martin
Luther King in school. “I guess peaceful marches wouldn’t cut it
here.”

“Not so much.”

“I want to help.” The words just slipped out.
Fox didn’t react, clearly having expected something similar. “I
mean, I’m willing to help out in exchange for learning everything
you know about the Dust trade. You said that people are paying
attention to my recording from Magnum, right? Maybe we could
capitalize on that. Maybe I could promote a recording of yours with
my next feed, use my popularity to get whatever you want promoted
out there?”

“Well, sure, but it’s not that simple. You got
away from Magnum last night because your recording was clearly an
accident. Suppose we release a second feed and identify you with
the Resistance. Guess who would come knocking at your front door
the next night?”

“Oh,” said Selah, “right.” Disappointment hit
her. It’d seemed like a great plan. “Maybe I could wear a mask, and
just say it was me? No, wait. That wouldn’t change anything. People
already saw my face in the Magnum recording.”

“Right. That’s what Cloud said.” Selah felt a
jolt of adrenaline. Cloud had been talking about her? “He doesn’t
think we can use you. Your identity’s been compromised. The vamps
know who you are. We can’t risk endangering you or ourselves by
working together.”

“Wait,” said Selah. She felt crushed. “You mean,
I can’t help at all?”

“Well, maybe you could send us information, or
do some background work. But we don’t think it would be smart for
you to meet anybody, or be given any sensitive information. It
would be too dangerous, to you and to us.” Fox paused awkwardly and
grimaced apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re kidding me?” said Selah. “There’s got to
be a way. You won’t tell me anything? But I need to know. You don’t
understand. I came all this way—I’ve imprisoned myself in this
city—just so I could learn something to help out my dad. You have
to help me. There has to be something!” It wasn’t supposed to work
out this way. She was supposed to meet up with Cloud, help him out
with his most dangerous missions, and in exchange he’d tell her
everything she needed to know to blow open the conspiracy that had
taken her father. Not send them secret messages about what was
happening inside the Palisades and learn nothing in return.

“You know,” said a new voice, lazy and amused
from the doorway, “he’s right. It’s amazing how huge a security
liability you would be.”

Selah whipped around and stared at the entrance,
scrabbling for her pistol as she did so. A slender figure leaned
against the frame, arms crossed over his chest, a black silhouette
against the faint moonlight.

“Who—” asked Selah, but Fox was already moving.
As he extinguished his lighter and darted away, somebody fired a
gun. The sound of the shot was explosive, shocking, and Selah fell
off her stool as she ducked reflexively, crashing to the ground
onto broken plates and glass and losing her gun in the process.
Gasping, she looked up, and saw that the figure was gone from the
door. She heard a second shot and then a yell of rage. The flash of
gunfire had been a stunning blank in the dark, and the air smelled
acrid, as if the shot had burned it. A second door opened to the
night against the back way, and two figures sprinted through it and
away. Had one been the stranger?

She lay still, trying to listen over her
heartbeat. Blinked away the dust, and fighting not to sneeze.
Silence. Just her breathing, as quiet as she could make it, fear
making her want to breathe in short, shallow gasps. Who was that?
The footsteps that she’d decided she’d imagined? The silence mixed
with the darkness so that they both pressed down upon her. She
decided to give it another moment, and then slip out. Go home.
Maybe Fox was right. Maybe this wasn’t for her.

After what she gauged was another minute, she
felt with trembling fingers across the floor for the pistol. Where
was it? Had she dropped it on the bar when she fell? Her fingers
crept over shards of glass, splinters of wood, and then across the
legs of the high chair. Carefully, gritting her teeth, she used the
chair to stand. While doing so, she stepped on a piece of broken
glass and it crunched underfoot. She froze, eyes wide, and stared
into the black. Colors floated in her vision, but all was still.
The oppressive silence continued. No breathing but her own. No
sound at all.

Relax. The stranger chased Fox out the door.
That’s who he was after. He wanted the Resistance, not you. He’s
gone. Just get out, get home, and swear to Jesus never to go out at
night again.

She stretched out her arms and searched the top
of the bar. Nothing. Frustration merged with her panic and the
thought of getting on her knees to search the ground once more was
too much. She had to get out. Get away. Carefully she began to walk
toward the front door. Each step was horrifically loud, kicking or
crunching something on the ground. She moved slowly like a blind
woman, heart thudding painfully in her chest, nausea roiling the
pit of her stomach. She breathed in shallow, light sips of air.
Focused on the door. Halfway there.

A lighter flicked to life. A man was seated at a
table to her right. He could’ve reached out and touched her. Selah
screamed, leaped back. He watched her, cruel amusement on his
handsome white face. His eyes—his eyes were jet black. Selah
couldn’t think. Her mind seized and she stumbled back, hands
clenched into fists, fists pressed to her mouth. His eyes were
perfect pools of liquid night, each reflecting the flame in
miniature.

“Hello,” he said in that same cultured, taunting
tone. The stranger from the doorway. Black blood stained his chest,
had soaked into his clothing, fresh and wet in the lambent light of
the flame. It didn’t seem to bother him. Selah took another step
away, unable to take her eyes off him, wanting to turn and run but
only capable of stumbling back, step by step, away from that
ghastly smile, that sick twist of his lips, and those ravenous eyes
that held her trapped.

“I didn’t realize there was a second one hidden
by the door. Sloppy of me. Foolish, even, to think that only one
would come. I’ll be chastised later. Punished for my mistake.” He
could’ve been recounting the weather report. There was no real
concern on his face. Something else, though. Another expression, a
predatory variation of the look men gave her when they gazed at her
with lust. “Ah, well. Still, you’re here. All alone. And so
beautiful. So young. I’ll have to assuage my sorrow with your
company.”

That’s when she understood. When she recognized
his expression, what lay snarling beneath his amused façade, what
burned in his black eyes.
Hunger.

Selah turned and ran for the door. It was only
five yards away, but it might as well have been a mile. In the
darkness she crashed into a table, knocked it onto its side, and
plunged on, sobbing with rising terror. She tripped, nearly fell,
but caught herself and regained her balance, and ran right into the
vampire.

He was back in the doorway. Had somehow crossed
the intervening space without effort, without sound, so that she
ran straight into his arms. Before she could react he embraced her,
pressed her against his lean body, her face held against his cold,
clammy shirt. His bloody shirt, which was damp and cold despite the
blood having just flowed forth from the large bullet hole over his
heart.

She screamed and thrust back against him. Could
hear him laughing as he held her, held her as effortlessly as if
she were a child. She fought to push him away with both hands and
felt smooth muscle beneath his shirt. Without warning he let her go
and she sprawled backward, crashed to the ground on her ass and
immediately skittered away, pushing with her heels until she
fetched up against the underside of a fallen table.