Vampire Miami (29 page)

“So this is where you ended up,” she said at
last. He didn’t answer. She took a breath, and then hung her head.
The flicker of hope she’d felt upon seeing him extinguished. He was
as helpless as she was.

The minutes stretched out. She wondered when
Cloud would be thrown into the ring. Was it happening now? She
tried to recall the roar of the crowd she’d seen in the feed.
Pictured Cloud going up against some monster of a man. How long
would he fight? He wouldn’t go down easy. His dancer’s grace might
keep him out of reach for a minute, maybe two. But he would go
down. And down again, until finally he’d lay still, broken.
Dead.

“What happened?” asked Theo, his voice breaking
the silence.

Selah looked up at him. His face betrayed
nothing. A mask of stone. She shook her head. “We tried to escape.
Make a run for the embassy. They stopped us, killed some of my
friends. Another one—Cloud, the guy leading—who was leading the
Rebellion—he’s being put into a Freedom Fight.” She closed her
eyes. “I’ve been given to Sawiskera.” Silence. No sound from Theo,
not even that of breathing. “And you? What’s going to happen to
you?” She opened her eyes to watch him.

He stirred, shifted his weight. “I’m going to be
given to what’s left of Jocasta’s brood. They will drink my blood,
eat my flesh, and then kill me.”

Selah couldn’t help it—she laughed. “Well,
aren’t we a pair. Both our lives have turned to shit.”

Theo seemed unmoved. “Everything comes to an
end.”

“Great,” said Selah. “That’s what I need right
now. Some Zen fucking philosophy.”

“Everything comes to an end,” said Theo,
ignoring her. “I have walked this earth for a long time. In my
memory, the nights bleed into each other. There have been few
moments of joy, and almost none of happiness. Just pain and base
pleasure. It has grown … exhausting. Endless nights on the hunt,
with nothing to look forward to beyond the thrill of feeding. Even
that has grown stale. Even that.” He looked over at her. “Have you
ever wondered why there are so few elder vampires? Why few live
past several hundred years?”

Selah hadn’t. “I didn’t know most didn’t.”

“They don’t. Most die before they reach a
hundred. Foolishness, feuds, accidents. Those that pass a century
have displayed a rare will to exist. Not to live, but to persist. A
denial of death, of an end. Some persist out of fear, others out of
a greed for life, and a few because of some long-standing goal. But
it doesn’t last. By the time you reach your second century, the
nights have grown thin. There is little that thrills. All is but a
case of repetition. An endless series of moons that gaze down on
the same sordid pleasure plays.”

Theo shook his head. “Few have the will to exist
past their second century. The world grows too strange. Humans show
the same passions and weaknesses, but they no longer speak to your
culture, your understanding of the world. You grow alone. You grow
tired. You grow weary. I grow weary. All things come to an end, and
perhaps this shall be mine. I can’t say I don’t welcome it.”

Selah stared bleakly at him. He stared at the
far wall. “And Sawiskera? How has he survived, then? For not
centuries, but thousands of years?”

Theo laughed, and it was a mirthless, unnatural
sound, a husking bark of amusement steeped in his own bitterness.
“He claims to have never been a man. Claims to have been a Native
American god, one of two twins born of the Sky Mother. He’s had
many names. Hahgwehdaetgan is another.” Theo shook his head. “I’ve
gone through moments where I believe him. When I’ve understood the
scope of his ego, the sheer inhumanity of his mind, and wondered.
Maybe he is a god. I’ve never heard of another vampire that’s lived
for so long.”

“Oh,” said Selah. “Great. I’m being given to a
god.”

“Perhaps. Sometimes I’ve thought that, but most
times I think he was just a man. An ancient man of amazing
willpower. He definitely had a brother, and I think it’s his hatred
for him that’s kept him going for so long. That thought has
arrested me time and again. That a hatred could fuel a life for
millennia. In the legends I’ve studied, his brother was the good
one. Blessed and full of creative energy. His brother made all life
from the body of the Sky Mother, brought goodness into the world.
Sawiskera was the dark brother, full of jealousy. He tried to copy
his brother, and failed. His creations were mockeries, dark things.
They fought. In the tales, the good brother banishes Sawiskera into
the night, and bids him leave all men alone. There are some
frightening … similarities.”

Selah digested this. “You said you reminded him
of his brother. Was it because you were also … a good man?”

Theo laughed again, but this time quieter, more
bitter than the first. “He may have thought so. I don’t even
remember. It was so long ago. Sometimes I think my memories of my
real life are now just memories of memories. Stories I’ve told
myself that have replaced my actual memories. Shadows on the
wall.”

“Your wife, Sethe?” Selah went forward
carefully, tentatively. “How can you be sure I look like her?”

Theo turned and stared at her, and there was a
sudden and naked vulnerability to his face. He shook his head, and
looked away. “In that, I have no doubt.”

Selah swallowed, looked down. Silence again. She
found that she didn’t want silence. Not yet. Soon perhaps, when her
end came. But not now. “He was wearing a Superman shirt when I saw
him. Sawiskera. And watching a sunrise on TV.”

“Yes,” said Theo. “He is strange. I don’t
pretend to understand him. Or guess what he makes of modern
culture. But I know he’s always looked for his brother, for his
brother’s reflection in things. As if he believed that his
brother’s spirit yet can be found in certain people, certain
objects, traveling down through time, haunting him. It seemed
absurd to me, but he decided back when Superman got big that he was
a modern incarnation of his brother. The good man who fell from the
sky. So he mocks him by wearing his shirt, and in other ways. You
would think it foolish, but then you see that hatred in his eyes,
see how solemn his desire to desecrate his brother’s memory is, and
it’s just chilling.”

The door to the room opened. Selah turned and
saw Hector step inside. He looked nervous, glanced back outside
before pulling it closed behind him.

“If you’ve come to gloat, you can skip it,” said
Selah, looking away. He was about the last person other than Karl
she wanted to see.

“I, well …” He sounded strange. Selah looked
back. He was sweating. He was holding something in his hand. “I’ve
been thinking. A lot. Since I’ve met you. About—whatever, it
doesn’t matter. And I was just talking to Mr. Plessy. And he told
me in great detail about what was going to happen to you.” He was
turning something over and over in his hand, shaking his head. “He
told me that it was thanks to me. I mean, I was in the helicopter.
When you were taken. I was leading the mission. I was the one who
convinced Angelo—Maria Elena’s boyfriend—to keep an eye on her, and
let me know where and when she went places. He said this was all my
responsibility.”

Selah didn’t know whether to spit or hold her
breath. Something was happening. She rose to her feet and moved to
the front. Hector glanced up at her, looked away.

“I didn’t realize, I mean, I did, in abstract,
but when Mr. Plessy told me, I mean, when he went over the details
of what was going to happen, I finally understood what I’d done. I
don’t know. It snapped me out of it, like I’d been in a daze. And I
couldn’t. I couldn’t let it happen.”

“Hector, what are you saying?”

“I’m going to quit. I don’t know what’s going to
happen to me, but I can’t do this anymore. So I’m done, and I’m
going to unlock this door, and leave the keys, and I’m gone.”

He glanced at her and looked away again. “I’m
sorry. I’m so sorry.” Then he unlocked her cell door and stepped
away and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Selah was out of the cell before she realized
she was moving, and took the keys from the lock. Theo was also
standing. “We can go,” she said. She hurried to his door, and it
was as simple as unlocking it. His door swung open. They were free.
“We can leave!”

His momentary elation dissipated. He shook his
head. “I can’t. It wasn’t the bars that held me here. It was my
resignation. Sawiskera’s judgment.”

“But if your unlife is ‘over,’ then do whatever
you want! Come with me! Come help me, even if you think you’ll get
caught. How can it get worse?”

“You don’t understand,” said Theo. “I can’t go
against my sire’s wishes. It’s more than just my desire. His orders
weigh upon me like shackles. They constrain me. I can’t leave.”

Selah shook her head, not understanding. “You
mean, they compel you? Magically?”

He looked about to argue with her words, but
instead nodded. “A vampire’s sire can command him. His blood gives
him authority. I can’t go, as much as I wish I could.”

Selah felt her wave of hope come crashing down.
Together they could’ve rescued Cloud, made for the embassy. Alone,
what could she do? She couldn’t break into the Arena alone.
Couldn’t save him. Unless.

“Drink from me.”

Theo stepped back.

“Drink from me. If you won’t come with me, then
you can lend me your power. Drink from me.”

Theo shook his head. “I can’t.”

Selah slammed her hand on the cell door’s frame.
“Why not? Why can’t you?”

Theo couldn’t meet her gaze. He turned and
looked away. “I can’t. I can’t face the pain.”

“The pain? Of what, being human?”

“No. Of having left my wife to die. Of having
abandoned her. I can’t do it.”

Selah stepped into his cell. Stared up at him,
his handsome, brutal, alien face. Then she punched him in the
chest. It was like hitting a massive punching bag filled with sand.
He looked at her in surprise. She punched him again. “You coward!”
She hit him in the stomach, knowing it did no good, but furious,
furious at him. “You won’t help because you’re scared to feel pain
for your wife? Doesn’t she deserve better? Don’t I? Is that really
how you’re going to end your existence, like a coward, afraid to
take responsibility for your actions?”

He caught her wrists, trapped her, but she
carried on, staring him in the eyes. “I’ve taken responsibility for
mine, and you think I like it? My friends are dead. One of my
friends is about to die because of me. My grandmother is
who-knows-where and probably in more pain than I can imagine.
Because of me. And now I’m going to die, sold down the river to
Sawiskera for his pleasure, and you think you can get away with
being scared? Grow up! Quit being a coward, and act like a
man!”

Theo stared down at her, and then his lips
pulled back from his teeth. From his fangs. She felt herself
falling into his eyes, drowning in them, so compelling and deep
they were, and her words died in her throat and he was growling,
growling from the core of his soul, a sound of fear and
desperation, and then he closed his eyes and lowered his lips to
her neck.

Selah ran. Her feet barely touched the ground.
She was a zephyr, a spirit of the wind. She ran toward an image
that hovered in her mind, summoned from memory: Cloud. His eyes,
amused, intelligent, caring. His mobile mouth, his hair always
spiked in strange and crazy ways. She ran, and the world seemed to
move in slow motion around her, seemed to glide past without effort
as she soared through it. She was out of the parking garage and
heading up Biscayne. Running down the center of the street. No
matter that cars slowly swerved to avoid her. The wind tore
lovingly at her clothing, sought to restrain her. Nothing could.
Please
, she asked,
please let me be in time.

Up ahead and to the right was the ivory
curvature of the Arena, the vast LED screen that covered its front,
glittering and glowing as it promoted that night’s event. She could
read the words easily from here: CLOUD vs. ANTHRAX. It flashed
away, was replaced by Cloud’s iconic masked face, and then by that
of a half-barbarian thug who had to be his opponent. The crowd was
sparse. Easy to run through, to knife past. She crossed into the
right lane. No matter that cars were speeding toward her. A white
Mercedes slammed on the brakes. It moved at a glacial pace. Selah
leaped. She raised her knees, flew up and drifted over its roof,
covering twenty feet before she touched down on the pavement, light
as a feather. People turned to stare at her, mouths open, but she
was already gone.

She was up the broad, sweeping steps leading to
the Arena’s glass doors in a heartbeat. A line of stragglers still
tried to get in, tickets in hand. She thought of Cloud’s smile. Of
the rifleman in the SUV lining up his sights on Cloud’s back. She
ghosted past the line, slipped past the ticket registrar before he
could turn to look at her. The rifleman’s finger on the trigger.
She had been screaming, endlessly screaming, and it had done no
good.

Across the open space of the lobby that
circumnavigated the ground floor of the Arena. Ignored the
escalators, the vendors’ stalls, not daring to look at the TV
screens that showed a fight going on in the center of the arena.
Please. Please let it not be too late.

Two huge doors sat open before her. She floated
through. Guards turned to look in the direction she’d just come as
she passed, their reflexes lagging behind. The stands rose up on
both sides, seats high above, so that she ran down a brief hallway
between them and out onto the main floor.

A cage had been set up in the arena’s center. A
cube thirty feet a side. Overhead the massive telecaster showed the
assembled crowd what was taking place within with terrible detail.
Selah pushed past all manner of people, knocking them aside as if
they were made of paper. A vague sense of the how vast the arena
was, how far back and high the stadium seats receded in every
direction. Only the lower levels were filled. Not enough sick
fanatics in Miami to fill it completely.