Vampire Miami (31 page)

His eyes devoured her. They were the bright,
black eyes of an animal, a bird of prey. There was nothing in them
that she recognized, nothing at all. Her mouth was dry. She tried
to swallow, barely managed.
Oh, Cloud
. She looked at him, at
his tousled mop of black hair. She couldn’t see his face. Recalled
his smile when she appeared in the cage to save him. His ironic
smile, relieved and confident both, his smile that showed that
despite it all, they hadn’t yet even come close to breaking him.
She gazed into Sawiskera’s eyes. This one could. She knew it. He
could break Cloud, and through him, he could break her.

Selah closed her eyes. Could she do it? Could
she agree? Become a vampire. A monster. Even the best of men and
women when embraced became callous, indifferent. They
changed
. She wouldn’t be Selah, not anymore. Nor would she
be simply dead; it would be a form of walking purgatory, an ongoing
eternity of nights filled with blood and pain and hunger. She would
inflict countless horrors upon others, and she wouldn’t care. She
would enjoy it.

Selah shook her head. It was too much. She
couldn’t encompass the enormity of it. Couldn’t understand what was
at stake, not really. She took a shuddering breath, then a second.
Fought for calm. Looked up at Cloud. Where he sat. Could she live
with herself if she allowed him to die instead? She couldn’t face
that. Couldn’t think of it. Two impossibilities. Both led to
damnation, but one allowed Cloud to walk free.

She thought of his lips on hers. That one moment
of bliss in the madness of the arena. She thought of his kiss, his
laughter, and closed her eyes. The fight went out of her. For a
moment that seemed infinite while it lasted she fought the words
that had to come, but then she nodded. “All right. I’ll do it.”

Sawiskera didn’t laugh, didn’t celebrate in any
way. He simply nodded. This was what he’d known would happen. She
hated him for his confidence, his surety in manipulating her. He
walked away, and after three steps was simply gone. Selah stared at
the door, looked around quickly. Just gone.

“Cloud?” She tried to keep her voice steady. His
head hung still. “Cloud? Please wake up. Please …”

He didn’t respond. She blinked furiously against
the tears. Think.
Think
. What could she do? Who could help
her? Hector? No. He was long gone, if he hadn’t already been
caught. Maria Elena, Mama B? Back at the Palisades, injured and
heartbroken. Even if they tried to come for her, how would they
even get in the building, much less up here? General Adams? He
probably didn’t even know what had happened, where she was. And
he’d said the US government had refused to directly intervene.
Theo? Trapped in a cell of his own making, bound by laws of
obedience woven into his very blood. Who? Cholly was dead. Cassie
and Joey too. There was nobody else. Nobody.

She rested her head against the column. Thought
of her father. Imagined him swinging in through the window on the
end of a rope, gun in hand, glass shattering before his feet.
Swinging in to save her, helicopter outside to whisk them away.
Almost smiled at the ridiculous image, which in turn brought back
her tears. How she missed him. What she would do to see him one
last time.

Sawiskera returned. He was suddenly crouched
before her, carefully pouring out a white powder in a circle around
her. He poured carefully, drawing a line all about her pillar, and
with that completed he placed a small woven red mat on the ground
just outside it. He opened a simple leather pack and drew out
feathers, beads, strangely colored stones. These he set before him
with ceremonial deliberateness. He disappeared. Selah was almost
getting used to this. A few minutes passed, and he was back,
setting a beaten copper bowl on the ground before his mat. Into
this he poured a mess of small branches and kindling, which he then
efficiently arranged into a small chimney. He waved his hand over
the small branches and they caught fire, crackling into flame as if
by magic.

Selah watched, mesmerized. He tossed different
powders into the fire, and the smoke took on a sweet smell.
Sawiskera sat back on his heels, closed his eyes, and went still.
That vampiric immobility. Selah tugged at her bonds again. Gazed
out the windows. Only an hour or so left before dawn. The smoke
that had at first been sweet began to take on a cloying smell. It
hung in the air, not dissipating, and soon she saw it follow the
circle of white powder, blindly tracing its course so within five
minutes, the white powder circle was mirrored by a hovering one of
gray smoke.

Sawiskera opened his eyes and began to chant.
Selah couldn’t make out the words, or even the separation between
them. The tones rose and fell, from guttural croaks to high-pitched
calls, streaming ever on without pause for breath, a horrifying
torrent of sound that no human could ever make. He stared right at
her as he chanted, and the sound of his voice began to reverberate
in her mind, echo within the confines of her skull. She closed her
eyes and shook her head, trying to dislodge it from her mind, but
it only grew louder. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t focus. The words
mixed with the smoke and made her feel nauseated, panicked. She
thrashed against her bonds, and then gave in, panting.

On and on went the words, the sound intrusive,
invasive, and it felt as if they were slowly sliding around her
mind like fingers tickling their way under the belly of a fish,
softly and subtly encircling it. Getting between her thoughts and
her self, creating a barrier so that she panicked once more, tried
to thrash, and realized that she could do little more than groan
and stir her arms.

Selah fought to open her eyes. She couldn’t do
more than crack them open. The fire before Sawiskera seemed to have
grown into a tall spear of flame, impossibly high, a tongue of
crimson that danced and weaved like a cobra, the rest of the room
hidden behind a wall of smoke that now stretched from ground to
ceiling. She tried to stand, tried to do anything, but couldn’t.
Her body was numb, no longer hers. His words and sounds poured into
her mind, around it, and she tried to scream. Was unable to even
lift her head.

He stood, then. Stepped through the smoke, over
the white powder, and right up to her. Reached up and broke her
bonds with ease, and cut deeply into each of her palms with one of
his nails. She didn’t even feel the pain. Stood swaying as if held
up by a great invisible hand. Watched with horror as he sliced each
of his own palms deeply, as his black blood welled up, and then she
closed her eyes as he took her left hand in his left and her right
in his right, wrists crossed, their wounds pressed together.

It was too much. Too much. She felt his blood
press into the cut in her palm like an eel might force itself
through a bank of weeds. It wasn’t passive bleeding but a questing,
thrusting of his blood. And her own blood in turn began to pour
into his palm, so that within moments his blood was circulating
into her body, hers into his. The smoke, his words, all of it
crashing upon her.

Selah felt something dislodge itself from her
core. From within the center of her body, close to her heart—but it
was deeper than that, somehow, from some dimension that was not
physical. It was the essence of self, and it slowly pulled away
from her body, began to lift. Selah gasped, choked. It was a pain
beyond mere physical agony. This was a desecration of her spirit.
She shivered, shook, but could not break his grip. Could not fall,
could not pull away. Watched, numb with shock, as her spirit began
to flow through her right palm into his.

And then, somehow, the ritual became worse.
Something was flowing out of his left hand. Coursing into her along
with his blood. Something foul and putrid, black and rancid. It was
alive, in its own distorted way, a power, a need. It was a hunger,
a blind and demanding appetite that at last did make her scream,
despite all the bonds that held her. She threw her head back as
that violation entered her left arm, and screamed, screamed for the
death of her self, her innocence, her spirit.

Cataclysm. It was as if a lightning bolt of
searing mercury blasted her, and she felt Sawiskera being wrenched
away. Flung from her, their bond broken. Selah fell to her knees,
mind reeling, their connection broken. What remained of her spirit
flooded back into her, and the infection severed, so that what she
had received wiggled into her core, leaving the rest in Sawiskera.
She fell forward, onto her hands, her face pressed against carpet.
Coughed. Sobbed. Looked up.

Theo stood tall and terrible between her and
Sawiskera, who was gazing up at him with the first human expression
she’d seen on his face: fury. Theo’s fists were balled, his feet
shoulder-width apart. Ready, chin lowered. Staring at his sire,
whom he had just flung aside. Had just impossibly flung aside.

“You dare,” hissed Sawiskera. “You dare!”

“You’re worse than filth,” said Theo. “All these
years. All these years I’ve done what you’ve asked. Never had a
choice. Now I do. And I aim to redress those wrongs.”

Sawiskera rose to his feet. Selah slowly stood
as well. The nausea was deep in her belly as if a bucket of slime
had been poured down her throat. Her head throbbed and her spirit
throbbed, violated in some visceral, unthinkable manner. But
something else—a deep and alien strength roared within her now,
akin to the pounding of the ocean on the shore. Instead of feeling
weak and bewildered by what had happened, Selah reached for her
anger and found it. Reached for this new strength, this power that
Sawiskera had poured into her, as great as storm clouds and as
harrowing as forest fires, and let it lift her to her feet.

Sawiskera flew at Theo and they met each other
in midair, crashing to the ground as they grappled, hands grasping
forearms, fangs bared as one strove to overpower the other. Selah
knew Theo shouldn’t have a chance against him, should have been
crushed immediately by his sire, but somehow, he wasn’t. He held
his own.

She stepped forward to help and hit an invisible
wall. Fell back, and then ran forward again. A curtain of invisible
energy stopped her, and she stared down. The circle of sand. She
tried to kick it apart, but her toe was stopped inches from the
grains. Selah cried out and pounded her fists against the wall. She
felt an alien strength raging within her, but it was futile. The
wall held her trapped.

Sawiskera bucked his body and threw Theo off.
The Dragon hit a desk, shattered the wood into kindling, and then
rolled over the ground into Cloud’s chair, hitting it hard enough
to knock him over. Theo rose to his feet, only to find Sawiskera
waiting for him. The vampire king’s power was coming back. Faster
than the eye could follow he struck at Theo, who blocked the first,
second, third attack, only to miss the fourth and be lifted off the
ground by the neck.

“You pathetic creature,” snarled Sawiskera, eyes
slits, voice almost incomprehensible. “You dare raise your hand
against me?”

Theo wasn’t interested in small talk. He wrapped
his left leg around Sawiskera’s waist, holding him tight, and then
lashed out with his right knee, burying it with all his force into
Sawiskera’s chest, cracking his sternum. Sawiskera dropped him with
a croak and stepped back.

Selah screamed. Pounded on the invisible wall.
Saw that Cloud had opened his eyes, was staring in horror at the
fight taking place before him.

“Cloud!” she yelled. He looked up, over at her.
“Cloud, help me! Come here!”

Whatever had been done to him had hurt him
badly. He blinked, tried to focus on her. Wriggled, and then she
saw him go impossibly pale and nearly pass out as pain washed over
him.

Selah looked over at the two vampires. They were
exchanging blows faster than the eye could follow, but Sawiskera
was winning. He was demolishing Theo blow by blow, driving him down
to one knee, knocking him back. For every punch Theo landed, his
sire landed three.

Cloud forced his eyes open. Took a deep breath
and wriggled free of his chair once more. His hands were cuffed
behind his back, but he hadn’t been actually tied to the chair. He
worked himself across the floor, sweat drenching him in moments,
and then sat up, tried to rise, and fell over once more.

Selah didn’t think about how she felt. The
corruption she sensed within her own body. The sordid taste in the
back of her throat, the feverish burning swamping her. She stared
fixedly at Cloud. Tried to lend him strength, to help him through
sheer will.

Theo was down. Sawiskera walked toward him.
Cloud straightened, fell over closer to her. A foot from the
circle. “Break it!” she cried. “Break the circle of sand!”

Sawiskera placed his foot on Theo’s throat. Drew
his hand back to strike.

Cloud reached out and with a convulsive movement
of his head, broke the circle.

Selah flowed free. Like a spirit of vengeance
she fell upon Sawiskera before he had a chance to react. She caught
him by the shoulders and cast him against the wall with enough
force that he crashed through it, and fell into the far room. She
went after him. Clawed her way through the hole, but he was already
up. He grabbed her right fist, and she his left. They stood,
suddenly immobile, each straining against the other. Staring into
each other’s eyes.

“You gave me too much,” she hissed. Eyes
narrowed, he fought not to show his shock, to show fear. Clearly
nobody had resisted him in such manner for millennia. But Selah
felt Sawiskera’s own strength in her limbs. In her fingers. He was
her height, she realized. A compact, slender man. Who was now
beginning to buckle before her.

But his was a will that went beyond strength.
His was a mind that had obdurately fought for survival through
countless challenges. She saw him reach deep within himself, reach
past the part that was mere strength, and call upon his foul
will.