Vampire Miami (34 page)

“Mama,” said Selah. She felt strange, suddenly.
Almost a sense of vertigo, a swirling in her eyes. “Do we—do you
know if our family has any Native American blood in it?”

“Native American?” Mama B paused. “Hard to say.
I don’t think my parents did. Though my own grandmother, she might
have done. Why do you ask?”

Selah studied her hands. “Sawiskera. He said my
blood has this property because I’m descended from his brother.
Teharonhiawako. You ever heard of that name?”

Mama B shook her head. “No.” They stood in
silence, and then Mama B shook her head once more. “That sounds
like foolishness. I wouldn’t pay it no mind. That monster was
crazy. Who knows what he believed or why.”

“All right,” said Selah. “Yeah, you’re probably
right.” She stood up. Mama B pushed open the screen door, and
together they went inside.

Cloud was speaking with the general in the
kitchen, but Selah walked into the bathroom. She already knew.
Could feel the darkness stirring within her. Could feel the strange
and delirious energy coiling through her body.

Selah turned on the bathroom light and looked in
the mirror. Two jet vampire eyes stared back at her. She forced
herself to not look away. Looked deep into them, but no matter how
hard she stared, she couldn’t see any depth. Any soul. Anything
that resembled the Selah she knew.

She killed the light, but the darkness wasn’t as
absolute as it should have been. It was as if moonlight were
tracing the edges of things, even in this closed little room. Her
eyes. It had to be because of her eyes. She held her hand up before
her face, and saw each individual finger. It should have been
impossible. It wasn’t.

Selah stepped out, walked into the kitchen, and
into its bright illumination. Stopped in the doorway, and looked at
the three people gathered around a map, making no effort to hide
her eyes. Mama B dropped her coffee. It crashed to the tiled floor,
and shattered. Cloud clenched his jaw, and even the general
grimaced.

“I’m going to LA,” she said. A sense of
rightness suffused her. “I’m going to find a cure, and then I’m
going to help the government create a vaccine. And then I’m going
to hunt down every last vampire, until there’s not one of them
left.”

Cloud stepped forward and looked her full in the
eyes, deep into their black depths. Selah felt a great and
vulnerable hope arise within her, a desperate yearning, a terror of
rejection. A storm of emotions roiled behind his eyes, and then he
took her face in his hands and kissed her. He pulled back, and
nodded. “Then I’m coming with you. I don’t know what the future may
bring. But in your voice I hear a chance for hope. No matter where
you go, I’ll be there.”

###

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The Human Revolt: Vampire LA
is now
available - turn the page to begin reading the first chapter.

The vampire king of Miami is dead, and Selah
Brown is on the run - for his ancient blood now courses through her
veins.

Desperate and with only days left to live, Selah
flees to the vampire city of LA in search of a cure. Her goal: to
undo the curse that is turning her into the most powerful vampire
to have ever walked the night.

Yet time is running out. As Selah becomes
enmeshed in LA's corruption, violence, and vampiric politics, she
comes to realize that salvation may come at the price of her very
soul...

They drove down through the Cajon Pass, through
the last vestiges of night, leaving the hills and mountains behind
them for the dawn and San Bernardino Valley. Their cross-country
trek had been a frantic one, Cloud seeking to outrace the gathering
darkness in Selah’s eyes—but it was a losing battle. Chin in the
crook of her elbow, which in turn rested on the sill of the
Cadillac’s open window, Selah watched the line of mountains recede
behind them in the side mirror, their peaks lightening to dusky
rose under a hazy peach sky. By this time yesterday the curse had
already receded, the sclera of her eyes having turned murky gray,
the browns of her irises struggling to the fore. She forced herself
to look at her reflection in the vibrating mirror, and stared
numbly into eyes that were still twin pools of jet, as inhuman as
the eyes of a predatory bird. Vampire eyes. Eyes that betrayed her
impending damnation.

Cloud quietly whistled the opening bars to
“Stairway to Heaven,” one wrist limp over the apex of the steering
wheel, while Selah closed her eyes and listened. Allowed the thrum
of the car, the sound of the tires as they raced over the crumbling
asphalt, and his thready whistle to lull the fear that clenched her
heart and cramped her stomach. Cloud. She reached out with one hand
and found his, felt his fingers interlace with hers and give them a
squeeze. He kept whistling, and she smiled. He couldn’t carry a
tune to save his life.

They drove on for another five minutes, until
Cloud pulled onto the shoulder, tires crunching on loose gravel as
they stopped. Selah looked up, blinking against the brightness of
the dawn. He’d parked in the center of a flat bridge that passed
mere yards over a broad, stony riverbed through which a half-dozen
small streams carved their passage.

“How you feeling?” His voice was low,
controlled. She didn’t want to look at him, wanted to stay fixed on
the near hills and the great transmission towers that passed over
the riverbed a half mile away. He squeezed her hand again, and with
a sudden thrill of fear Selah made eye contact, stared at him with
eyes that she knew reflected his face like an ebon mirror. A fierce
desire to see him flinch arose within her like a storm of sharp
flints, to see the first sign of rejection. Instead he frowned and
shook his head. Lines of fatigue were carved into his face. “It’s
almost six fifteen. That’s sunrise nearly thirty minutes gone.”

Selah nodded mutely and turned away. Turned out
she was the one who couldn’t meet his eyes. She examined the road
that rose before dipping out of view, creating its own horizon. Her
anger ebbed, and they sat in silence, the Cadillac rocking as the
occasional car rushed past. She held onto his hand as if it were
all that kept her from drowning, unable to speak, wrestling with
her terror, and studied the heavy clouds whose contours were traced
by the growing light, ranging from buttery yellows at their closest
tips to darker slate and purples in their farthest depths.

One morning, she knew—and perhaps it was this
one—her eyes simply would not change back. One morning she would
instead be overcome with an undeniable desire to sleep, and that
would be it. She would be lost. Selah sat still, frozen, and
waited. It was almost unbearable.

As always, she felt the change take place. Felt
the grip of Sawiskera’s curse relax and release her, an uncoiling
of tension, an evaporation of power. It was as if scales swam
across her eyes, a flick of a fish’s tail disturbing a pond’s
surface before sinking from view. The darkness fell away, and she
felt the vampiric detachment go with it. She hadn’t thought her
emotions muted before, but now they raged to the fore and roiled in
her chest, terror fighting with relief as tears flooded her eyes.
She had one more day. She wasn’t a monster yet. Her relief was too
powerful; she covered her face with her hands and held back a
rising sob.

She heard the seat groan as Cloud shifted over
and then pulled her into his arms. She remained stiff at first,
resisting comfort, and then allowed herself to relax. He rested his
chin on her head and held her tight. “Not yet. Not yet. We’ve still
got time. That’s the San Bernardino Valley right ahead of us. We
get through that, cross the Pueblo Hills, and find Chico on the
other side. He’ll get us into the Core, and there we’ll find your
cure. We’re that close.”

It had become their mantra ever since they’d
fled Miami, escaping over the militarized Wall that enclosed the
city through the use of Selah’s new abilities. She’d felt nothing
but gratitude for them at the time. Find Chico, get into the Core,
discover the cure. No question about their being one. Cloud never
allowed her to voice that doubt. There was a cure. They would find
it. He seemed to know through and through that she was going to be
fine.

Selah pushed away from him and dried her eyes on
her sleeve. Studied his worn face. “We’re running out of time.”

Cloud nodded, tenderness and sorrow both in his
expression. “I know. We’re cutting it close.”

Selah shook her head. “You don’t know. One
morning soon I won’t come back. You’ll be in danger. From me. You
don’t understand what you’re doing.” Fresh tears pricked her eyes.
How was he so infuriatingly calm about this? Cloud took her hand.
His palm was dry, callused, and he held her gaze with an unswerving
confidence that stopped her voice.

“Maybe I don’t understand. But I don’t have to.
All I know is that we’re going to make it. We have to make it.
We’ve come too far, we’re too damn close to give up now.” Cloud
looked out the windshield over the desiccated landscape, eyes
moving from side to side. “And—this is bigger than us. Remember?
The General said we might be able to make a vaccine out of your
blood. Can you imagine? That would change—everything.” He looked
back at her. “You have to stay strong, Selah, just for a little
longer. Keep on fighting.” Selah’s anger and fear melted away
before her love for him. She moved forward into his arms and kissed
him, felt his stubble against her face, held him hard, and then
pressed her face into his neck. He hugged her tight, and she lay
still, eyes closed, breathing in his smell, his hair tickling the
tip of her nose. Slowly she grew calm. One more day.

Eventually Selah pulled back and wiped her eyes
one last time. “And how are you holding up? You good to keep
going?”

Cloud rubbed his face and smiled. “You think I’m
going to fall asleep this close to LA? You got another thing
coming.” He yawned suddenly, explosively, eyes cinching tight as he
brought his fist up, blinked away tears, and then laughed as her
look became skeptical. “I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”

Selah settled back as Cloud eased them onto the
road. Traffic was sparse; everybody knew you didn’t drive into LA.
Not anymore. LA had become the place where roads went to die.

They cruised down the I-15. It descended
gradually and curved around the base of the mountain until the
distant hills that cupped the valley before them slid into sight. A
haze persisted over the land, making the horizon a vague and
indefinite sight. Up ahead and to the right, Selah saw the first
signs of human habitation. A cacophony of shacks and sheds engulfed
the highway as it plunged into the slums that had once been the
barren north slopes of Fontana. Selah smelled smoke in the air, a
faint hint of burning rubber that faded even as she registered its
presence.

“How far in are we going to try to drive?” she
asked. The shoulder was crammed with abandoned cars, most pushed
right off the cracked asphalt and onto the dry scrub. Cloud didn’t
answer. She looked over at him and saw that his knuckles had
whitened on the steering wheel. She shifted her weight in her seat.
It still took her by surprise how quickly he could shift from his
subdued and detached manner to full-on simmering anger. His eyes
were locked on the shacks ahead of them. A muscle flickered over
the joint of his jaw.

“Look at that,” he said. “Right here in the US
of A.” He began to slow down. The clouds before them had
incandesced to white, only their farthest reaches yet harboring
hints of salmon pink and rose, yet the valley below remained
shrouded in a thin fog. A few electric lights glimmered in the haze
before them, so that it seemed that the whole city slept, unaware
of their approach.

Selah tried to think of something to say. With
the weight on her mind, it was hard to drag out her empathy. Her
concern for random strangers. But being with Cloud made her look at
it all afresh. The traffic thickened and reduced them to a slow
crawl as they hit the rear end of a weaving curl of cars and buses
impatiently inching forward. Selah watched, face blank, as they
passed the first homes built right up to the side of the
interstate. They were ramshackle affairs, cobbled together from a
mess of raw brick, cinderblocks, and corrugated metal roofing.
Hanging drapes blocked windows, and even at this raw early hour,
people sat in their doorways, watching the passing cars with
subdued curiosity.

Cloud inhaled deliberately through his nose.
Selah hunkered down and stayed quiet. “Tell me how people all over
the country are OK with this,” he said. “Up in Chicago, Seattle,
New York City. How do people go about their lives with this—this
insanity—right in their face?”