Vampire Miami (19 page)

One thing was clear. Cloud knew his way around a
high-powered motorbike. He coaxed every ounce of performance from
it, hopping up onto the pavement one moment and then back onto the
road, hunched low like a jockey on a prizewinning racehorse, daring
a look behind them every few moments until Selah did the same and
felt her throat close up. Three bikes were in pursuit. A trap, he’d
said. Selah turned her head back and pressed her cheek against his
jacket once more. She’d been the bait. He’d known it, and come for
her regardless.

Two more blocks whipped by, buildings a blur,
and then Cloud eased on the brakes, leaned over low, took the
corner, and slid right off Biscayne at an insanely high speed.
Selah closed her eyes, didn’t want to see. Held on, prayed that the
tires would keep traction. If she had been riding high on vampire
mojo, maybe this would’ve been a thrill. It
had
been a
thrill, she realized, not too long ago. Now? It was terrifying.

A thump and crash behind her. She sneaked a
look. Two bikes following, one now cratered into the wall of the
first building beyond the turn. Fierce elation. She didn’t know if
they were vampires following her, or humans in their employ. Didn’t
care.
Die, bastards
, she thought viciously.

Cloud steered the bike down the center of the
street, right along the median, gunning past one block after
another, slicing through intersections at full speed, traffic not
withstanding. Selah simply didn’t want to look. She pressed her
face into him, held him tight. Another curdling crash behind her,
the sound of horns. She didn’t look this time. Knew what had
happened.

A whine past her ear, followed by a second. What
on earth? Opened her eyes and looked behind them. The last rider
had a gun, was lining up a third shot. Cloud didn’t wait. He hopped
the bike up onto the sidewalk, slowed down so fast that the tires
shrieked in protest, and then took a broad flight of stairs. Selah
couldn’t see where they were going. Simply tried to not get bucked
off as the bike jounced and jostled its way up, the bike seat
slamming into her over and over again, jarring her teeth. Then they
hit a landing, glass walled to her right and looking down over the
street, and Cloud took off once more, threading through tables and
chairs, shops and stores on this elevated walkway blurring past to
their left.

Selah looked behind her, saw the third rider
appear over the stairs, following right after. A third shot, so
close it sounded right in her ear. Cloud ripped the bike over to
the left around a sharp corner, nearly coming to a stop as he did
so, but they were going too fast. The bike slid out from under
them, and suddenly Selah was tumbling like a rag doll, arms pressed
to her chest, eyes wide open, pain tearing up her leg, cracking her
head.

She came to a stop against the wall. Blinked,
tried to get up. Her vision was blurred. Saw Cloud struggle up onto
one knee. The third bike came around the corner with better
precision, but Cloud lifted his arm, a gun of his own in his hand,
and shot the rider right in the chest. The rider fell to the side,
twisting the bike down with him, its rear wheel causing it to spin
out and smash through the glass wall. It fell out of sight under a
cascade of broken glass, and took the rider along with it.

Silence. Cloud turned to her, staggered, pulled
off his helmet and let it drop as knelt by her side. He slide a
hand under her head and wiped her hair from her face. “Selah! You
OK?”

She blinked. Her vision was clearing. Perhaps it
was some vampire residue in her system. She didn’t
think
she
should have taken that fall so well. Put her hand to her head, and
then nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. I think.”

“Jesus,” said Cloud, and lowered his head so
that his brow touched hers, eyes closed as he inhaled deeply. “That
was fucking insane.” He straightened up, and then held out his
hand, watched it shake, and then snapped it into a fist. “Goddamn.
All right. We need to keep going.”

“Yeah,” she said, taking his hand and rising to
her feet. She felt shaky, but not too bad. “Thank you. For coming.
For doing this.” She tried a smile. He smiled for the first time,
closing one eye as he did so, so despite her split lip, she guessed
that she’d pulled one off.

“Come on,” he said. Grabbed the bike, and hauled
it back up onto its wheels. “More of them are gonna come. Let’s
go.”

“Where we going?” she asked, climbing back on
behind him. She didn’t care, really. Just wanted to close her eyes
and wrap her arms around him once more.

“Someplace safe,” he said. “Safe as it gets in
Miami, at any rate.”

Selah took a deep breath as he began to drive
along the rest of the walkway and back down onto the street. No
words had ever sounded so good.

They drove for about twenty minutes, stopping
only once to discard her new Omni and check her clothing for bugs.
Cloud waved a slender wand over her, but nothing pinged. They
climbed back on the bike and headed out. Part of Selah, a new and
harder side to her, thought she should watch where they went, learn
the directions, catch the street names. But she couldn’t be
bothered, couldn’t muster the energy. It felt good to just ride
behind Cloud, to hold him, to let him take over. Let him take her
wherever he thought was best. She’d just go. Selah relaxed, inch by
inch, and allowed herself to enjoy the thrum of the bike, the feel
of the biking leathers against her cheek. Closed her eyes, and
thought of nothing beyond the sensation of relief.

Eventually, they slowed to a stop. Selah lifted
her head. It was turning out to be a beautiful night, the sky clear
and the air smooth and warm. They’d stopped before a small house on
a quiet suburban street. It was dark, but the waning moon as she
rose over the horizon illuminated the thicket of weeds that claimed
each front yard, that had crept out surreptitiously onto the road
itself. Great trees spread their canopy over intermittent spots of
the road, and the homes were beautiful, each a unique cottage made
of rough white stone, with small, covered porches and dark
windows.

“Where are we?” asked Selah, climbing off the
bike.

“Coral Gables,” said Cloud, removing his helmet
and scruffing his hand through his hair. “Used to be old money. I
went to school close by. UM’s over in that direction.”

“Oh,” said Selah, and a subtle thrill ran
through her once more, the ghost of what she might have felt a few
days ago before the world imploded. She’d just learned something
about Cloud that nobody online knew. “You were a student there?”
She almost groaned. Hadn’t he just said as much?

“Yeah.” Cloud wheeled the bike into the
driveway, and hung the helmet on one of the handlebars. Scrounged
up a weathered tarp from where it lay to one side and draped it
over the bike. “Seems like another life.” He wiped his hands on his
hips and turned to her. “How you feeling? Headache? Dizzy?”

Selah rubbed at her elbows, the back of her
head. There was something to him. Something subdued, even here,
with just the two of them, something wary. Almost as if he were
shy. “I feel fine, actually. It’s weird. You’d think I’d be in
worse shape.”

Cloud dug a key from his pocket, and then
knocked a complex tattoo on the front door before unlocking it.
“Yeah, you’d think,” he said. “Guess we got lucky.” He shook his
head and pushed the door open. “Hey! We’re back.”

Selah followed him inside. She didn’t know what
to expect, was almost shy about meeting new people in her raw
state. Still, she couldn’t remain outside. Inside it was dark, but
Cloud navigated through the living room with ease, digging an LED
flashlight out of his pocket to help guide Selah around the chairs
and side tables. Right up to a narrow door under the stairs, which
he knocked on again in the same code.

Selah heard the sound of a deadbolt slide back.
Then the door opened and a white girl stared at them both, light
coming up from behind her. She was curvaceous, verging on heavyset,
and her hair was cropped short but for her bangs, which were long
and curled off to the left. A tattoo insinuated itself up the side
of her neck from out under her T-shirt, though Selah couldn’t make
it out.

“You’re one lucky idiot,” she said to Cloud,
voice disapproving. “It was a trap, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Course it was. Selah, this is
Cassie Jones. Cassie, Selah. You going to let us in?”

Cassie turned to scrutinize Selah, her face
still hard. “You sure she’s not bugged?”

“She’s clean.”

“Hi,” said Selah.

“Come on in, then,” said Cassie, turning to walk
down the steps into a basement. Cloud gestured for Selah to go
first, unfazed by his friend’s grumpy manner, and Selah did so,
moving down the wooden steps into a large, cinderblock-lined
basement. It had a low ceiling and concrete floor; half of it was
filled with what looked like IKEA bunk beds, with the other half
given over to computer monitors and electronic equipment. As the
trio descended, a couple of other people looked up.

“Welcome to our HQ,” said Cloud. “At least, this
month’s installment. We’re already looking for a new place. Can’t
be too safe.”

Selah drifted a few steps from the base of the
stairs and then stood, looking around. The others stood and
gathered before them, Cassie moving away to check what looked like
security monitors of the street outside and further down the
block.

“That’s Barbara Hein,” said Cloud, gesturing to
a second white girl who was willowy thin and had hair dyed so
black, it held blue tints in its depths. “And you know Joey.” Joey
was Fox, staring abashedly at her. He spread his arm wide and
turned in a circle before dropping them and looking at her soberly.
“The four of us make up the Resistance.”

“The four of you?” Selah turned back to him.
“This is it?”

Cassie snorted from where she was working, and
Cloud nodded. “Yeah. We’re a small operation. We used to be larger,
but it’s just too dangerous. Some good friends were … taken, and so
we decided to stop accepting new members. At least until we figure
out a few things. So for now, this is it.”

Barbara examined Selah with a friendly smile,
and Joey stepped forward. “Hey. I’m glad you made it out of there.
Sorry Cloud and I had to run like that. It’s, like, our standard
protocol for when we’re discovered. Don’t fight, just run.”

“You were there that night?” asked Selah,
turning back to Cloud. He nodded, expression neutral, and walked
over to sit in an ancient armchair, drawing one knee up so that he
could rest his elbow on it. “Oh.” She looked around. This wasn’t
what she’d expected. This basement room, the IKEA furniture, how
small a group they were, how young. She’d thought—she didn’t know
what she’d expected, exactly. More people, more activity, a more
dramatic base. Maybe a penthouse apartment somewhere, or something
like the Batcave.

Joey saw the disappointment on her face and
laughed. “Come on, take a seat. We’ve got a lot to talk about.” He
headed over to a couple of couches shoved into the corner and
collapsed into one, kicking out his legs.

Selah sat on the other couch. Barbara perched on
the couch’s arm, and Joey pulled up a ragged beach chair. Cassie
had moved to another computer, and was checking some code.

Cloud leaned back, “So, for better or worse,
here you are. Welcome. We’ve been running this thing for three
years now.” His voice was quiet, but there was a charge to it, a
current of power that drew and held Selah’s attention. “We’re
fighting to do one thing: make sure the world out there sees
exactly what’s going on here in Miami, and never loses sight of the
reality of what the vampires are all about.”

Joey cut in. “You’ve seen our stuff online?”
Selah nodded. “Cool. Well, what we’re doing here is pretty well
thought out. Sure, we could recruit more people and kill a couple
of vampires, or plant a bomb in one of their buildings, or do some
real guerilla work. But to what end? That’s not where the real
battle is being fought.”

Selah looked at the others. She felt a small
thrill again. How often had she dreamed of sitting right here,
having Cloud and his friends explain this very thing to her and her
alone? She felt a surge of fondness at the memory of that girl,
that world.

“So, what are you trying to achieve?” she asked,
Maria Elena’s words coming back to her. “I mean, we all know they
are vampires. Telling us they’re vampires isn’t anything new. Is
it?”

Cloud stood up, restless, and began to pace.
“Maybe, maybe not. I’ve only figured it out myself about a year or
so back when this new recruit of ours joined up. You might get to
meet him later.” Cloud stopped at the far wall and turned, crossing
his arms. “What do you think they want to achieve, the vampires?
What do you think their long-term goal is?”

Selah frowned. Long-term goal? She hadn’t even
asked that question. She thought it over. Thought of Mama B’s work.
Thought of the Beach, of downtown. The planes flying into Miami
Airport. The Freedom Games. “Create … a functional city?”

Cloud shook his head. “No. They’re not
interested in that. Couldn’t give a damn. At least, not all of
them.”

Joey cut in. “There are two groups, see. The
old-school vampires who were around before the War, the Dracula
types who have this almost medieval mentality. They’re happy to
just run the city and drink blood and act all old-school. But
there’s this new group, of which Karl Plessy is the leader. The new
vampires, the ones who were made during the War. They’re ambitious,
they’re modern. They want much more.”

Joey grinned, and then cut a glance at Cloud and
dropped the grin. She could feel his excitement, but Cloud was like
a brooding storm cloud at the end of the room. He shook his head,
as if working through his own ideas once more, and then picked up
the thread. “Think about it. What’s their reality? They’re trapped
here.”