Twice Bitten (61 page)

“Get on the floor between my legs, Txema!” Chanson ordered. She motioned for Tyreen, Raquel, and Nora—who had worked her way over to us—to form a protective circle around me. Meanwhile, I saw Franz join Garvan and Armando in their quest to push back the ever-increasing army of Ralu. Hundreds of these vicious aggressors swooped in repeatedly as they sought to find a weakness to exploit. “If worse comes to worst, since we have no immediate way to get out of here, we all will cover you to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good—the survival of our kind and your sacred bloodline!”

“No, you need to take care of yourselves and let me find Alaia!” I urged, wanting to flee desperately from that place and try to rescue my baby girl.

But I had no clue where to start my search, since vampires were literally everywhere. By then, a sizeable portion of Ralu’s army had seeped into the palace. Outside, it was impossible to see past them, and the moon’s light was effectively blocked by their presence. I couldn’t believe how endless his vile army seemed to be. The allied warriors of Gustav had slaughtered hundreds of his brother’s forces, but now the first casualties on our side occurred…and began to multiply.

The gore and severed body parts soon included pieces of vampires I had come to be familiar with, although none were close friends. But unlike the smoldering foulness of Ralu’s warriors in hastened decomposition, the European version of the undead merely disintegrated once the blood drained from their violated bodies.

Seeing this not only heightened my fear to near hysteria, but the nausea made me wretch where I lay. Chanson offered neither comfort nor a rebuke, as she fought off a horde of attackers that repeatedly lunged toward her and the rest of the quartet defending me as I lay prone beneath her.

For the first time, I considered the real possibility that we might lose this battle.

“We need to get the fuck out of here!”
I screamed at her.
“Pick me up, and let’s all fly to someplace safe!!”

“It’s not as easy as that!”
she shouted back at me, while deftly avoiding a flying machete aimed at her head.
“We can’t leave here until we have regained the advantage, and have defeated Ralu himself!!”

Great. Just fucking great. We hadn’t even seen Ralu yet. With the way things were going, I wondered if he might’ve turned everything over to his wicked minions while he snacked on my precious daughter’s remains. I had to find a way to block such images from my mind, but at the moment felt powerless…until I saw Gustav, Kazikli, Koimala, and Xuanxang join together to form an impenetrable phalanx.

They moved together in tandem and soon swirled as a unit. I only caught glimpses of the four vampires that had become a small cyclone, ripping through hundreds of Ralu’s warriors at a time. As the enemy weakened, many of our enemies looked around warily when one moment they fought side by side with a Chupacabra partner, only to find a diced-up corpse an instant later.

I started to feel hopeful, and wanted to announce what I witnessed as an encouragement to Chanson and the other females protecting me. But their attention was drawn to a sudden explosion and a new gaping wound in the palace’s northern wall. Within it soon stood an enormous vampire…one I had seen only in my nightmares.

Ralu. Ralu the demon vampire in the flesh…and whose eyes were fiery coals that burned with more rage than I’d ever seen from him.

My skin crawled in repulsion, even though he was nearly a hundred feet away from me.

“Face me alone, Gustav!” he roared. “This battle should be between you and I, and the winner’s kingdom takes all!”

He stood and waited while the swirling cyclone dissipated. Stepping forward with an air of confidence and regality, Gustav motioned for the other three to remain where they were. He accepted his brother’s challenge.

All of the vampires in attendance—both mongrel and human-like—became spectators for the only fight that now mattered. Enough space was cleared amid the slippery gore and overturned furniture. Then we all nervously awaited the outcome.

Ralu produced his jeweled scepter from inside his robe, and Gustav produced his, as well. Then the two approached each other, each one cautious as if awaiting the initial move in this ultimate match for supremacy. I expected Gustav to be the gentleman between the two, despite my unease when around him. I wouldn’t have been disappointed if he had chosen a more aggressive role in this confrontation, and perhaps he should’ve done just that.

I thought for sure he would die that night after Ralu made the first move, sending a white-hot lightning bolt from his scepter toward Gustav’s midsection after suddenly pointing it at him. Gustav didn’t move until the very last moment, barely escaping the attack that lit his ceremonial robe ablaze.

Unlike me, our European king has no vanity—despite the unabashed love he has for the finer things in this world that beauty and power over the living have yielded for him. He threw off the flaming garments, and dressed only in a loincloth he moved stealthily toward Ralu, sending his own lightning bolts toward him from his scepter.

Ralu responded in kind, while their entire audience shrunk back to avoid being hit, after several vampires on both sides exploded into flames. The bolts became more sustained as Gustav moved in on his brother, and while the deeper hatred of Ralu seemed to give him the early upper hand, the tide eventually turned in Gustav’s favor. The lightning bolts locked onto each other to form one solid beam of plasma energy. When they did, Gustav yanked hard on his scepter, and the one held by Ralu flew out of the fiend’s hands and fell harmlessly at Kazikli’s feet. No one touched it.

“It’s over, brother,” said Gustav, evenly, and with enough volume to be heard by everyone. “I should have killed you long ago, certainly as you intended to kill me tonight.”

“Please…have mercy!” begged Ralu, dropping to his knees and holding his trembling hands out before him. A hushed murmur swept through the room. “I am terribly sorry for my misguided actions…I foolishly thought it was my time to rule the vampire world. But I now see how wrong I’ve been, and I can’t begin to express how horribly I feel for the terrible things I’ve done!”

He started to cry. But I knew better, and prayed everyone else—including Gustav—could see through such a shallow sham, this stinking load of horseshit.

“You disgust me, and have no right to ask for mercy!” Gustav sneered in response.

He shook his head and turned away, moving toward Ralu’s scepter to retrieve it. Before he could reach it, however, the scepter lifted and flew through the air, landing in Ralu’s hand. Ralu pointed it at his brother’s back, wearing a contemptuous smirk.

It all happened so fast, I believe no one could’ve anticipated this horrible turn of events—despite the disgusted hisses and taunts from the European sector for Ralu’s pitiful performance as a contrite soul. Surely we all thought Gustav would die in the next few seconds. I could almost hear the disheartened gasps among the vampires who had come to protect my daughter and me, and I think we all felt the uplift in our enemies’ spirits.

But Gustav became a king long ago for good reason. Before his brother could send a cowardly death blow as intended, he whirled around with his own scepter pointed at Ralu’s head, sending a fiery bolt that ripped off half of Ralu’s face, and the upper portion of his carotid artery. With a look of stunned surprise on his face, Ralu fell to the ground, writhing while his blood poured out and mingled with the gore that had already stained the once beautiful marble floor.

“He’s dead! Gustav the Mighty has killed him!!” shouted Franz, while the horde of Chupacabras retreated en masse.

Nearly everyone from our side—excluding Gustav and Xuanxang—joined in the celebration. For the first time in nearly an hour, I was allowed to stand and move about freely. My immediate concern was to locate my daughter, and when the vampires assigned to protect me saw me frantically scanning the room for Alaia, they joined my search. Meanwhile, Gustav approached his brother’s stiffening corpse across the way. I barely noticed this during my search, but heard Xuanxang advise they needed to decapitate the body to ensure Ralu remained dead.

Right after he said this, suddenly three of Ralu’s warriors flew over to his body and hovered protectively. Gustav pointed his scepter at them, and when they didn’t budge, Xuanxang produced his own scepter and pointed it at the three while shouting an incantation in Chinese. I knew I was losing valuable time in the search for my daughter. But, as I headed for the passageway that led to the garden and lagoon outside the palace, I turned my head back to them in time to see the three warriors transform themselves into Huangtian Dadi and two other vampires from his court.

Chanson and Raquel were near me when this happened, and we all gasped in surprise. Even Xuanxang seemed stunned to find his former lord standing across from him, and covered in gore from European allies they both once shared. Gustav rebuked Huangtian Dadi and told him to move away, but instead the Chinese vampire emperor and his cohorts instantly shifted into their dragon forms. I’m not sure if Gustav could have killed any of them with the power of his scepter. By the time he pointed it toward them again they had picked up Ralu’s remains and flew out through the gaping hole behind them and into the night.

Logic told me that they would take Ralu’s body back to China, even though it would remain a mystery as to why. Would it be to somehow revive the corpse, as Garvan suggested? Or, as Chanson and Armando later stated, was it something in Ralu’s blood that remained inside the corpse, like a rare protein, that Huangtian Dadi coveted?

Only time would tell. All we knew at that moment was the hostile expulsion of our group from China had just taken on a more ominous meaning. The trio’s presence while fighting for the enemy broke any previous treaties between the Europeans and their former Chinese friends.

Xuanxang seemed to understand this and prepared to pursue his brethren in further battle, until Gustav stopped him from leaving. I wish I had lingered long enough to hear their conversation, but I’d already stepped through the alcove on my way to the garden and lagoon outside. Thankfully, the entire enchanted area was set aglow by tall gaslights that had escaped the destruction inside the palace.

“Alaia!...
Alaia!!... Where are you, my baby?!!”

The weakness had returned to my knees, and I thought for sure she was dead. Yes, I hadn’t gone very far yet, but I had a sinking feeling she had already become a blood meal for some vampire. Especially since the society that needed us—Alaia and me—had been brought to the brink of anarchy. In that moment, where surely most civilized vampires believed they would be on their own soon, why wouldn’t a disloyal stray vamp drink enough of our sacred blood to look fucking fantastic for a century or two?

That’s what I pictured, and I couldn’t pull my focus away from such images in my head. Even as I wanted to help Chanson, Tyreen, Garvan and the others, I couldn’t do it. Just before I collapsed near a coral tree, Racco caught up to me.

“Don’t give up, Txema!” he whispered harshly, as he picked me back up and brought me close to him. “We will find her, and she
will
be fine!”

He sounded so confident. Meanwhile, the others called out to Alaia as they searched the garden and lagoon.

“But, she’s not here…so how can she be safe?” I said, bursting into tears again.

“You’ll have to trust me…sometimes I can feel things,” he said, his gentle tone and confidence unwavering. “Sometimes—hey, did you all hear that?”

“Hear what?” said Armando, his tone irritated. He was searching for my daughter among the bushes next to a palace wall that had also escaped damage from the attack.

“Wait…I think I hear something, too!” said Tyreen, sounding hopeful. “It’s coming from….”

She turned toward the lagoon, and pointed toward the table where I usually ate breakfast with Racco.

“Found her!”

Raquel called out joyfully from across the lagoon—near the harp stand and directly across from the table I mentioned. The vampires flew by us as Racco and I ran to the water’s edge. As we did, I heard Alaia’s giggles and baby talk. But I also heard a young man’s voice.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” said Armando, to a shadowed form near where my baby sat precariously perched, on the edge of a marble bench next to the water’s edge.

“I’m talking to my daughter.”

Huh?
It sounded like Peter, but not the confused vampire I’d seen two days prior. He sounded like the man I knew…and dearly loved. I wanted to run around to the other side of the lagoon and throw my arms around him, to thank him for saving my baby.

But that was before Armando grabbed the shadowed figure and pulled him under the glow from a nearby gas lamp.

In that instant, my illusion fell away. It was Peter, but the man I loved had not returned. He was still half civilized vampire and half Chupacabra, and completely despised by at least Armando. Tyreen was the only one who eyed him compassionately, as if picturing what could’ve been her fate had Franz and Armando not rescued her from the Chupacabra fate in time, as they did.

Despite Armando’s gruff treatment of him, Peter smiled. His smile was entirely for our little girl, whose enraptured countenance I could also see under the lamp’s glow.

“I wanted to spend time with my little girl, whom I love more than anything. She’s all I’ve got—”