Vampire Miami (24 page)

She hadn’t gone nearly as far as she’d thought.
The swells were more powerful here, raising her up and then
lowering her down into the troughs. Selah looked past the pale
sands of the shore at South Beach itself, a wall of buildings, the
famous art deco hotels of Ocean Drive, the high-rises at the very
tip. The neon lights, the faint sound of music. To her left rose
the Wind Tower, and she gazed at its summit, where who knew what
madness now reigned.

Selah searched for Theo and found him standing
still, not rocked by the tide, a column of steadiness, his black
skin gleaming in the fading light of the moon. She studied him, saw
that he wasn’t searching for her, and that, if anything, was what
made her return.

She swam back with long strokes, and eventually,
her feet touched sand once more. Walked up to him, still swimming
with her arms, and stopped. He regarded her. Neither spoke, and
then she broke the silence.

“Why did you help me?” The Selah of yesterday
might have begun with thanks. No longer.

He didn’t answer at first. She hadn’t expected
him to. So she watched him, and waited. Finally, he stirred
himself. “It was wrong what Jocasta was doing.”

Not good enough. “Are you telling me that you’ve
never seen that kind of shit before? That that was the first time,
ever?” He didn’t answer. Looked away from her. “Tell me the truth.
Why did you help me?”

He frowned, and reached a decision. “I was a
slave when Sawiskera found me,” he said. “It was in 1832. North
Carolina. My mother had been a slave, and I never knew my father.
She was brought over from Africa when she was but a girl. She never
really understood what had happened to her. Or perhaps could never
accept it.”

Selah’s mind raced. She did the math: he’d been
a vampire for almost two full centuries.

“I was married at the time. Her name was Sethe,
and she was the only good thing in my life.” His voice had grown
low, almost hoarse. Selah swam a little closer.

“At the time, I didn’t know why Sawiskera chose
me for the embrace. It was much rarer before the War for a vampire
to make another. Too many of us would draw attention, so we kept
our numbers small. I’ve come to understand him a little through
these past two hundred years, and now believe it’s because I
reminded him of his brother. And if one thing has guided
Sawiskera’s life and unlife, it has always been a hatred and
jealousy of his twin.”

Theo laughed humorlessly. “So he took me and
turned me into a vampire and part of my torment was his forcing me
to abandon Sethe. I fought him, and the compulsion he placed on me.
Fought it like I’d never done before or since, and in the end, I
failed.”

Selah regretted asking. Prying. These waters
were too deep, too lined with ancient pain. Theo stood still, the
waves rising and falling about his waist. He looked up, and fixed
her with his eyes.

“You look exactly like Sethe. Enough that when
we first danced I thought it a dream, a gift sent from above to
give me a moment of peace in these endless nights. I know you are
not her. I know that. But part of me will not—cannot—allow you to
suffer. I can’t stand by as I did before. Sawiskera has not laid a
compulsion on me to avoid you, and so. And so.”

They stood in silence, and Selah didn’t know
what to do. Should she step forward and hold him? She couldn’t
bring herself to do so. He’d died two hundred years ago, and his
eyes were a fathomless black. He was strange and though he’d saved
her, though she’d brought something back into his life, she didn’t
dare move to him, to hold him, to try and assuage a pain she could
not understand. So she watched instead, and studied his bleakly
handsome face.

Minutes passed, neither speaking, neither
moving. Theo looked at her, and then past her to the horizon once
more.

“What happens now?” Selah was starting to feel
cold, beginning to shiver.

“I don’t know. I will be blamed for Jocasta’s
death, and that of her brood. I can’t help but wonder how much of
this Karl planned. Giving you to Jocasta, knowing how she would
take you, how you might react upon taking her power.” He paused,
thinking. “Sawiskera will be petitioned, no doubt, by Jocasta’s
allies. They will demand my death. Sawiskera lost interest in
tormenting me long ago. He may grant them their demands.”

“Oh,” said Selah. She hadn’t guessed that there
might be politics between the vampires themselves. Had imagined
them a unified bloc of evil. “Was … Jocasta an enemy of
Karl’s?”

“Yes,” said Theo, his voice stark. “She was one
of the eldest. She ridiculed and opposed his efforts to gain human
sympathy.”

“And you aren’t an ally of his, either. And now
you’re in trouble too.”

“Never have I seen one so suited for our
condition as Karl,” said Theo softly. “It was as if he was born to
die and rise a vampire.” He shook his head.

“What about … me?” She almost felt selfish
asking.

“You can go free, as far as I’m concerned. I
cannot help you further. If I don’t present myself to Sawiskera, I
will be forfeiting his protection, and then all vampires will be
able to hunt me without fear of retaliation. Go to your family.
Karl will send for you, soon enough.”

“Oh,” Selah said, hope dying in her heart. She
wasn’t free. She hadn’t escaped. The violence had accomplished
nothing. Just a reprieve, and then she would be summoned to another
party. She crossed her arms over her chest, shivering.

“I’m sorry,” said Theo. “If I helped you leave
Miami, then I would break the Treaty. Both sides would hunt us
down, and we would not last a week. There is nothing I can do.”

“You tried,” said Selah brokenly. “You tried.
Thank you. You did everything you could.”

“Yet it was not enough,” he said, and with a
spasm of anger he drove one arm powerfully through the water,
sending up a wave of foam and spray. More quietly, “It was not
enough.”

Theo turned and strode back to the shore, and
only then did Selah wonder as to how she would follow, naked as she
was. Theo collected something dark from the sands, however, and
extended it to her. His knee-length jacket. Selah emerged from the
water. She’d fought beside him, naked and covered in blood. He’d
washed her in the waters of the ocean. His hunger was of a
different sort. So she put her embarrassment aside and walked up
the sands, allowed him to drape his jacket over her slender
shoulders. It was large and cool and bore his scent.

“Come,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride to
wherever you wish to go. Then I have to find my sire.”

Selah nodded. Followed him up the beach, and
then across the sands to where his bike was parked on the grass
beyond the retaining wall. She climbed pillion behind him, and
after threading her arms through the jacket sleeves, hugged him. He
was cold, hard, but she didn’t care. He turned on the bike, and
then smoothly accelerated away after she gave him the address for
the Palisades.

It was a long ride, and she closed her eyes for
most of it. She was spent, like a fruit whose flesh had been
scraped completely away, leaving only the thin and delicate skin
behind. She held him, and allowed her mind to drift, to not think.
When finally they arrived and she looked up and saw the storm
shutters of the Palisades, she felt as if she were awakening from a
dream.

She climbed off the bike. Theo looked at her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish … I wish I could do more.”

Selah shook her head. “You got me out of there.
You’ve brought me here. I’ll never—I’ll never be able to thank you
enough for that.”

He shook his head, and for a moment Selah
thought it seemed he was staring through her, seeing somebody else.
He reached out and touched her cheek with his fingers, the lightest
of touches, and not knowing why, she brought her hand up and
pressed his palm to her face. His skin was cool and smooth. His
eyes, she thought, were achingly deep in that moment, and when he
pulled away, she felt an urge to hold him, felt the very urge she’d
lacked before at the beach, but it was too late.

“Take care, Selah Brown,” he said, voice
rough.

“You too, Theo.”

He turned the bike around and drove off down the
street, going two blocks and then turning to the left toward
Biscayne Boulevard. She waited till all the echoes were gone, and
then turned back to the Palisades. It felt like years since she’d
been here last, and its battered façade and attempt at defiance
pulled at her heart. She walked up to the front door, and saw that
it had been jury-rigged back up into place, but that the job was
incomplete. Crouching down, she looked through a gap into the
lobby, and saw Tyler and Burnel at their chess, guns by their
side.

“Hi,” she said, knowing they would startle.
“It’s Selah, Mama B’s granddaughter. Can I come in?”

They did startle, and there was plenty of
shouting after that, with people being called and loud arguments
filling the lobby and people staring through the gaps at her,
demanding she wait till dawn, demanding proof she wasn’t a vampire,
until Mama B herself arrived and silenced them all. She pointed out
that Selah’s eyes weren’t black, and that if anybody intended to
stop her from opening the door, they’d best be prepared to deal
with all her anger.

So the door was opened and she was bundled
inside. People asked questions and peered at her, but Mama B was
having none of it. She took Selah under her arm and guided her
through the lobby, into the courtyard, and then up the steps to
their apartment. Fellow residents followed and demanded answers,
speaking their opinions loudly to each other so that others might
hear, but nobody dared directly confront Mama B.

Finally, their front door was closed, and Selah
turned to face her grandma, prepared for a tongue-lashing but
instead was enveloped in a great and all-consuming hug that crushed
the breath from her lungs. So held, Selah relaxed by slow degrees.
Mama B was saying something over and over again, something Selah
couldn’t quite make it out, but she didn’t need to, either. She was
with her grandma, and it was easy to pretend that the dark and
dangerous world of Miami couldn’t penetrate the circle of her
arms.

At last, Mama B pulled back and stared down at
Selah. “Girl, you smell like the ocean.”

Selah smiled. “Makes sense, seeing as I’ve been
swimming and all.”

“Well, then we can skip the shower and get you
into some clean clothes. I’m not going to ask you anything until
you’re comfortable and with a mug of something hot in your
hands.”

Selah stepped back into her little closet of a
room, and from her suitcase she picked out a clean pair of jeans,
old and worn and washed so many times they were soft as flannel,
and an old shirt from her sole year on the high school volleyball
team. Clean socks, clean soft underwear, a comfortable bra, and she
felt like a new person.

Returning to the living room, she saw Mama B had
finished boiling a pot of water over the gas cooker, and was
pouring it into a mug that immediately gave off the soft scent of
chamomile. She squeezed in a drop of honey, carried the mug over to
her armchair, and sat down. “While that steeps, let’s see what we
can do about your hair. You’re a mess.”

So it seemed they weren’t going to talk about
anything just yet after all. Content, Selah sat between her
grandmother’s legs and allowed Mama B to bring her hair back into
order, restoring her to some semblance of civilization after far
too many days and nights of madness.

Mama B began to croon an old melody, and Selah
took sips from her tea. In the yellow light of the sole lamp, Selah
could almost pretend that nothing horrific had happened. That
nothing worse was going to repeat itself tomorrow, or the night
after. She relaxed further, enjoyed the tea, and when Mama finally
deemed her hair to be in satisfactory condition, Selah stood and
sat in the only other armchair in the room.

“Now,” said Mama B. Her face had grown more
lined since Selah saw her last, hollowed out some by worry and lack
of sleep. “Selah, tell me what’s going on. Tell me everything, and
we’ll figure something out.”

So she did. She worked her way through every
night, and it was no small blessing that Mama didn’t seem
interested in preaching or interrupting her or telling her
I
told you so
at every opportunity she was given. And there were
many of them. Instead, she simply listened, face grave, fingers
steepled beneath her chin. Selah didn’t get into all the details,
and she skimmed through what had happened at Jocasta’s party. She
grew increasingly uneasy and nauseated as the story drew to its
close, and found her mind shying away from those images. Instead
she skipped forward to Theo, the beach, and then the drive
home.

When Selah finished, Mama B stood and went to
the kitchen cabinet from which she drew a small bottle of brown
liquid. “Scotch,” said Mama, not looking at Selah. “I’m not one for
drink, but tonight seems to merit a finger or two.” She paused, and
then looked at her granddaughter. “Care for some?” That, if
anything, drove home to Selah how shaken her grandmother was—and
how things had changed between them. Selah shook her head, and Mama
B poured two fingers in a glass and sat back down.

“Now, a girl by the name of Cassie came by
earlier and told us most of what you just told me. She didn’t get
into the details, but said that you were going to be helping them
out some, and that you’d chosen to do so of your own free will.”
Mama B took a very light sip. “I’m guessing that’s changed, hasn’t
it? You’re not going to want to go back to one of those
‘parties.’”

Selah shook her head. The thought caused her
mind to throw up a blank, absolute wall of negation. She couldn’t
go back. Couldn’t face another night like this one.