H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (68 page)

“Let’s go, Yomaida.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Nope.”

I walked Yomaida out the front door. She
peeked into the bar as we passed the room and did a double take at
all the bodies lying on the ground. Before we reached the door, I
passed the rich, gray-haired man. He didn’t seem at all shocked at
what had just happened. He must have stayed back and just observed.
He nodded his head at me, almost as if he approved of what I was
doing.

Once we hit outside, I could hear sirens.
“Okay, Yomaida,” I said. “This is the part you are really going to
need to trust me.” I grabbed her around her petite waist.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Like I said, you’re going to have to trust
me.”

Then I flew up in the air holding Yomaida
tightly. She only screamed a little bit at first, and then she was
just taking it all in, a big smile on her face and stars in her
eyes for me. It was your classic Superman and Lois Lane moment. She
was scared and vulnerable and I had just saved the day.

Chapter Nine

“What is going on, Josiah?” she asked,
holding me tightly as we flew across the sky.

“It’s exactly what I told you from the
beginning. I told you I’d protect you.”

As I flew higher I could see terror spilled
over Yomaida’s face. “Who are you? Are you sure you’re not an
angel?”

“I’m something,” I laughed. “Just hold on
tight, I’ll make sure your life is very safe.”

I flew above the clouds and headed north. I
knew what I was doing was against the law, but so is human
trafficking. Sometimes what is right is not necessarily the law of
the land.

I flew across the sky, holding Yomaida
close. After a while, she trusted what was happening and she seemed
to be enjoying her flight. I decided to land us in Temecula,
California. There is an isolated area over by Pechanga Casino and I
knew we’d be okay. We landed off of Highway 79, near a wine
vineyard.

After I safely landed, I led Yomaida to a
bench in front of the Vineyard and we sat down.

“Are you okay?” I asked. She was pretty
awestruck.

“I’m dreaming,” she said, closing her
eyes.

“No, this is very real.”

“Josiah, who are you?”

“I can’t tell you that. Just know I’m going
to bring you back to your family.”

“Really?” Yomaida still seemed shocked that
I didn’t want anything from her.

“You’re going to see your parents real
soon,” I said.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this for
me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I have trusted the wrong people for so
long.”

“You’re safe now.” She reached her hand over
to mine and held it. She squeezed my hand hard and leaned her head
into my chest.

“Why did you help me?” she asked.

“It’s a funny thing, I wasn’t planning on
helping you tonight, but once I saw you and then heard your story,
I knew it was what I had to do. I needed to protect you from that
place and especially that awful man you were with. I wanted to
return you to your father. You deserve to be reunited with your
family after all you’ve been through.”

Tears dripped from Yomaida’s eyes. “I just
can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe I’m going to see
my father.”

“You can see him right now if you like. I
could get you to Anaheim in about 10 minutes.”

“Would you?” she asked.

“There’s nothing more I want to do.”

“You are a good man.” Yomaida leaned in and
kissed me gently on my lips. I touched her cheek and tenderly
kissed her back on her forehead.

“Let’s go.”

“Right now?” she asked.

“Right now,” I confirmed.

I stood up and grabbed her by the waist once
again and hoisted myself back into the air.

“How can you fly?” she asked as we ascended
higher into the sky.

“Oh, you’d be amazed at all the things I can
do.” I blazed through the sky and the cold morning air felt a bit
chilled, but I was determined to quickly get her to Anaheim.

Within minutes, I could see Disneyland and
Yomaida guided me to a house near Ball and Euclid Street.

She pointed to a bright yellow house at the
west end of a cul-de-sac. “That is the one.” She began crying.
“That is my home! That’s my dad’s black work truck out front and my
mom’s white car! They still have the same cars!” she yelled out,
with a celebratory glee.

We landed in the front yard.

We composed ourselves and Yomaida hugged me
tightly “I’m nervous. I haven’t seen them in over a year.”

“Why didn’t you ever contact them from
Mexico?” I asked.

“Miguel wouldn’t let me. He never left me
alone or had any kind of telephone access.”

“Do they know you’re alive?”

“I don’t know. They must know
something.”

Yomaida leaned in and kissed my cheek.
“Sweet Josiah, you might not say you’re an angel, but you are my
guardian angel.”

“I’m just a guy,” I said.

“You’re an amazing one at that.” She turned
around and held her breath, then walked over to the door and
knocked.

I watched from the driveway; I didn’t want
her dad to think I had anything to do with her disappearance.

“Papa!” Yomaida yelled, as a burly, old
Hispanic man wearing a white, wife beater tank top and boxers
answered the door.

“Yomaida!” he flung the door opened and
hugged his daughter. They were both crying and sobbing joyfully.
Soon the whole house was up and made their way to the door. They
were all speaking Spanish, so I had a hard time understanding.

Yomaida was talking to her father and then
he stepped over and looked to where I was standing. He made his way
over to me.

“Josiah,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“My daughter says you are kind and you
helped her return. She said you never asked for anything in return.
She says that you are a wonderful man. I want to thank you with all
my heart for bringing her back to me.”

“It was my pleasure, sir. You have a very
special daughter. Always protect her.”

“I will never let her leave the house alone
again,” he laughed.

“For the meantime, that’s probably a good
idea.”

“You are always welcome in my home. Please
come back soon so we can celebrate.”

“I’d like that, sir.”

“Where is your car!” he asked looking down
the street.

“I don’t have one.”

“You two walked?”

“You can say that.” Cloud walking.

Yomaida walked over to us and hugged me
tightly. She was a beautiful woman and now she was home.

“Come back to me, Josiah. I know you need to
do whatever you do. But, come back and see me.”

I kissed her cheek and said, “Goodbye,
Yomaida. It was a pleasure meeting you.” I turned around and walked
down the street.

“Son!” Yomaida’s father yelled to me.

I turned around and Yomaida’s father kissed
his fist and raised it up in celebratory fashion and I returned the
gesture.

Son? It’s been a long time since I’d been
called son. Yeah, I would definitely be coming back.

Chapter Ten

I went around the corner and when the coast
was clear, I flew up into the sky and made my way back to Tijuana.
I felt good about how everything went down tonight.

I needed to get back to the hotel room
before the sun came up. I arrived at Hotel Ticuan and made my way
up to see Wyatt and get some rest.

I knocked on the door.

“What’s the password?” Wyatt joked, from
inside the room.

“Carni are worthless dogs,” I said, as
exhausted as I had felt in some time.

“That works for me,” Wyatt laughed. He
opened the door and I saw that he had sun-proofed the room pretty
well with some duct tape and cardboard.”

“Where did you get the cardboard?”

“Where else? There is a Dumpster
outside.”

“What have you been doing all night?” I
asked.

“Watching soccer. It seems to be what they
like to watch around here.”

“I think I read somewhere,” I said,
sarcastically, “that the Mexican people are pretty fond of the
sport.”

“What about you?” Wyatt asked.

“What about me?” I asked.

“Did you save the girl?”

“Don’t I always?” I winked and laid on the
bed.

“Yes, you do. You definitely have the
biggest hero complex of anyone I ever met.”

“I just do what’s right.”

“You and Spiderman.”

“Spiderman has nothing on me. What’s his
super power? Spinning a web?”

“As I recall, he’s a pretty good fighter,”
Wyatt said.

“I can kick Spiderman’s ass any day of the
week.” I said, with certainty.

“I wouldn’t doubt you could, Josiah. Hey,
that guy from last night said he’d meet us around midnight.
Hopefully, he found her.”

“He did seem to have an idea of who we were
talking about.”

I leaned back on the bed and, I had to
admit, the bed was pretty damn comfortable. Within minutes, I was
out.

I slept a good nine hours, as did Wyatt. The
room was pitch-black all day and we turned on the air conditioner.
I was awakened by a knock on the door. I popped up and looked
through the peephole.

Dammit, it was the gray-haired fellow from
the limo. How the hell did he know where I was staying?

I looked through the peephole to see if I
could see police with him, but as far as I could tell, he was
alone. “May I help you?” I asked, from behind the door. I spoke
with a weird accent that was a cross between Irish and Arabic.

“Pardon me, sir,” the man said. “May I speak
with the young blond gentleman?”

Shit, he knows I’m in the room.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“A friend.”

“A friend? I don’t know you.”

“I promise you, all I want to do is talk. I
have a proposition for you.”

“A proposition? I don’t need any
propositions!” I yelled from behind the door.

“I have the answers you are looking
for.”

How the hell did he know what I was looking
for?

“Like?” I asked.

“I know how to find the Deity,” he said, in
a calm manner.

Now I was listening. I opened the door. I
looked at the man and he was alone. I looked behind him and saw
that there was no one in the hall.

“There’s my man,” he said, excited to see
me.

“Who are you?” I asked. “For the record, I’m
not comfortable being anybody’s man. How can I help you?”

“Actually, it’s how we can help each other.
I would like to speak to you, but not here.”

“Where then?”

“There’s a conference room downstairs we can
go to. We’ll have more privacy.”

I looked back in the room and Wyatt was
still out like a light. “Okay, let’s go.”

I followed the man downstairs and he seemed
very familiar with the hotel. We took the elevator down and as far
as I could tell, he was Tandra. I tried to read his mind, but it
sounded like he was only thinking in Spanish, so I had no idea what
he was thinking.

“What is your name?” I asked, as the man led
me into the conference room. The conference room had a couple of
top-of-the-line desks in each corner and a long gorgeous conference
table in the middle of the room.

“My name is Romero.” He pulled out a seat
for me to sit down. I decided to trust his hospitality and I sat
down. Unless he had a silver nail in his pocket there was no way
this fifty-ish man could take me, even if I wasn’t a vampire.

He sat down next to me. “Do you like money,
Josiah?”

“How do you know my name?” I asked,
surprised. I didn’t like surprises and I had a feeling this guy was
going to be full of them.

“I know lots of things, but if you could
oblige me, would you answer the question?”

“Who doesn’t? But I’m not into the crime
business.”

“Crime business?” Romero laughed. “You have
this all wrong. Let me ask you another question. Do you miss
competition?”

“You mean fighting?”

“Yes.”

“Not really; believe it or not, I’ve been
okay in that department.” It seemed like all I’d been doing was
fighting ever since I left mixed martial arts. “Okay, you know my
name and you know I used to be a fighter.”

“And I know you’re a vampire.”

I stood up. I was right. This guy was full
of surprises.

“Please sit down. I’m not here to blackmail
you or challenge you. I want to tell you who I am.”

Like I said, I didn’t like surprises, and
this guy seemed to be getting off telling me all he knows about me.
I’ve seen enough to know when someone wants something from me. This
guy was ready to sell me on something. “What do you want,
Romero?”

“I think you and I can be very successful
together.”

“How so?”

“Josiah, I run the most lucrative,
underground, paranormal, supreme fighting league ever
organized.”

What was the guy talking about? A
paranormal, underground fighting league? I had never heard of such
a thing. “Let me get this straight,” I said. “You are aware of
vampires and you have an organization that exploits them?”

“No one is exploited. Everyone wants to be a
part of it. It’s not some circus freak show where people come and
watch lions eat Christians. This is top of the line badass,
motherf-ing fighting on a level that no one has ever seen before.
Guess what? Billionaires and millionaires love it. They want to see
the toughest people in the world fight, regardless of the mortality
or immortality. We have fights where the winner wins sometimes up
to a million dollars.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“So, now I have your attention.”

“A million dollars can usually do that. It’s
sort of my favorite number.”

“I saw you last night. I own that massage
business. I watched what you did on my surveillance camera and when
the police came in I hid the camera, so they couldn’t see who it
was. I also convinced all the others it was a red-headed man who
destroyed my place.”