by D. N. Hoxa
“Nothing, really. She knew we knew about her. She said she was somewhere around Florida, she gave us her message, and that was that,” El said.
“From what I know, nobody knows much about her, anyway,” I said, shrugging.
“That, or they’re always too afraid to cooperate,” Drag said.
“Good thing we found you, Mask,” El said, grinning.
“Yeah. We’re not going to let you out of our sight,” Drag added.
“Me, neither,” I said.
After that, we ran. They always let me lead, but with only a step ahead. They were serious about not leaving me out of their sight.
I had until we reached my home again to come up with a plan B. I knew it was going to be tricky, and dangerous if I got caught. But I had no other choice.
So once we got back, I told El where he could find at least four bottles of old white wine in a house half an hour away.
“Really?” El said, jumping to his feet.
“Yep. I left them because I don’t like white wine very much. They were for emergency cases, and I suspect you’re in somewhat of an emergency,” I said.
El grinned. “Let’s go, then.”
“Oh, no. Not me. But I can tell you how to get there.” The three of them looked like I’d slapped them, so I added, “In the meantime, Drag can teach me more poker, so that when you come back, I can beat all three of you.”
For a second, I thought they weren’t going to buy it, but then Zuke smiled and stood up.
“Sounds good to me,” Drag said and sat on my couch.
“I guess that’s alright,” El said reluctantly.
I explained how to get to the old house, west from where we were. “And make sure to check the basement. There could be more down there,” I added, just to spice it up a bit for El. But once he stood up to join Zuke by the door, all doubt had left him. He looked back at Drag once, who nodded at him, and then they both disappeared.
“You thought I was trying to run away, didn’t you?” I said. “I’m not stupid, Drag. Even a kid wouldn’t have fallen for that.”
“You never know just how stupid people can be,” was his response.
“Stupid enough to learn a game of cards from cheaters.”
“I’m no cheater,” Drag said, but his heart wasn’t into it.
“Oh, I saw you last night,” I said and took my mask off.
I went to the poison room and took three small bottles and put them in my pocket: one had something inside a bit yellow in color, one dark brown, and the other honey. I took another one for show before I went back.
“I’m going to take a quick shower.”
Like I’d suspected—because they smelled terribly—Drag found the idea of a shower very interesting.
“You have a shower?”
“Not really, but I do have water that’s relatively warm. And shampoo,” I said. Drag sat up.
“Do you have enough water for me, too?” he asked eagerly.
“Sure,” I said, shrugging like it was no big deal. I had tons. My mama taught me that if you let dirty water boil for long enough, it would get cleaned. Even piss. So I took all I could carry from the ocean, boiled it, sometimes all night long.
“But you’d have to be in there with me,” Drag said.
If I went too willingly, he might’ve suspected. If I refused, he would never get undressed and leave his bag within my reach.
So I laughed. “Are you kidding me?” I said. “No, thank you. I do not want to see your naked ass.”
“I’m not going to leave you here all alone, Mask,” he warned with an almost innocent smile.
“I’m not going to run away from my own home.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust you. Yet,” he said.
I pretended to be pissed. “Fine,” I said. “But I’m putting a curtain between us.”
Drag was happy with it. So I took the darkest fabric I could spare, and hung it however I could between the glassless shower cabin and the toilet seat.
“And I am not staying in there while you undress,” I hissed.
Drag was amused. “I’ll leave the door open, and I’ll call once I’m inside,” he said, and that was exactly what he did.
He took his clothes off and left them on the toilet lid. “You can come in now.”
I did.
It was a struggle not to scream. He was there in front of the curtain, completely naked with his dick hanging between his legs like a dead snake.
“God damn it, Drag!” I shouted, and he could’ve died laughing.
“You should’ve seen your face!” Drag repeated, over and over again, and I could imagine how my face had looked like. It must’ve been hilarious to him, and I did admit it was kind of funny.
“You do that again, I’ll definitely run away,” I said, looking down at the pile of clothes under which was the bag, waiting for me to open it.
I slowly kneeled. Drag was still laughing. I felt like I should’ve been sweating as I reached under the clothes.
“El’s gone die when he hears this,” Drag said.
“You are not telling anyone.”
“Oh, I am. I most definitely am,” Drag said before he took one of the buckets filled with water.
As soon as the ice cold water hit his head, and he screamed in excitement, I moved faster than I ever had before. I unzipped the bag, and the plastic box fell in my hand immediately.
I hid it behind the toilet so that even if he looked, he wouldn’t be able to see anything.
“Hallelujah!” Drag shouted. “That felt so good!”
“Try the honey shampoo. It smells like heaven,” I said, as I slowly opened the box.
“I’ll try all of them, if you don’t mind,” Drag said, laughing.
“Knock yourself out.”
There was a small syringe filled with clear liquid inside the box. It looked like I wouldn’t even need to use the bottles I’d hidden in my pocket. The thing looked like water.
“Oh, man,” Drag moaned as he rubbed himself raw with my shampoos.
I took one bottle from my pocket, and drank all of it in one gulp. Something I’d never tasted before, and it was terrible.
Eventually, Drag began to sing. It was kind of funny, and I did laugh a bit, before he took the second bucket. As soon as he threw the cold water on his head, I pried the syringe open, emptied the content in the empty bottle, and dipped the syringe into one of the smaller buckets by my feet to fill it up again. It looked brand new.
I stopped moving when the noise from the splashing water stopped. Now, all I had to do was wipe the syringe with my shirt, put it back into the box, put the box back into the bag, and zip the bag shut.
It felt like an eternity passed before Drag used another bucket. When he did, my fingers shook as I wiped the syringe and put the bag into place.
“You got any more of those shampoos?” Drag asked and I almost shat myself. I wasn’t that scared; it was more unexpected.
“Nope, just those,” I said through my teeth. I would’ve sounded breathless if I could breathe. The next second, Drag cursed jokingly, and while he did, I zipped his bag, and moved away from it. Almost the same goddamn second, someone spoke from behind me.
“’What the hell are you doing?”
I looked up to see El and Zuke looming above me by the bathroom door. They’d seen me. They’d seen me, and I was done. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t speak.
Then, El said: “Is he taking a shower?” He strode over to the makeshift curtain and opened it shamelessly. “You fucker! You have shampoo!”
And he started to undress. So fast that, the next second, before I even registered the relief I felt, I was looking at another naked butt and dick.
“Fucking hell!” I shouted, and I got up, passed a smiling Zuke.
“You should’ve seen his face!” Drag was saying, telling his friends how I reacted at the sight of him naked. My heart should’ve been pounding, but it was just as still as always.
; I’d done it. I’d fucking done it. I’d replaced the tranquilizer with water. Now, even if I couldn’t run from them, and even if they found Morta, they wouldn’t be able to hurt her.
***
El and Zuke had found the bottles of white wine, exactly where I told them they would. I could see the change in them now. They began to trust me.
Another night passed and we prepared ourselves for our journey to Florida.
On the next, fed and filled with bottles of poison in our bags, we left. I couldn’t say I was sad to leave that place behind. It had never been mine to begin with.
As we ran, all I could think about was how to escape. I had no idea where Morta was, but last time I saw her, she had been on her way to Dublin, and I knew where Dublin was. If I could find him again, then maybe I could find her.
“I think we’ll get there tonight,” Drag said when we stopped to look at the map the second night.
It looked like we were well past Jacksonville and headed for Orlando. He was right, we would be there before sunrise. And I had no chance of escaping while we were on the way. We all ran together, and they would notice if I so much as took a step in the wrong direction.
My brain buzzed with a thousand different ways it could all end badly. The easiest way, simply telling them that I was going off on my own, would probably end with my death. The hardest way, that of me escaping right under their noses, would probably end exactly the same way. So, I was stuck.
Before we knew it, we began to hear sounds. Nothing major, just steps, whispers here and there, and finally, there was music. We had arrived.
“I hope we find her here. I’m sick and tired of running,” El said. He didn’t like that we had to walk into a crowd of vampires neither of us had ever seen before. I didn’t, either.
I strained my ears in search of her heartbeat. If she was there and I heard her first, I could steer them away.
We passed the first vampires sitting around a small round table at the entrance of a new looking building. They had their poisons with them and were talking, but stopped when they spotted us.
“Just keep moving,” Drag mumbled.
“This was a mistake,” I whispered.
I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. Four strangers coming to a place crawling with vampires. And vampires wanted trouble, that much I had learned.
“Just act cool,” El said, turning his head to the side like he couldn’t see the other group of vampires at the end of the road, who were watching us, too. My mask was in place, but I still felt uncomfortable.
When we turned the corner, we realized where the music was coming from.
The place was unlike anything I had ever seen before, but I must’ve, because I knew what everything was! Frustration turned my teeth sharp. I was angry at myself. Angry at those things staring back at me, laughing in my face.
There was a DJ in the very middle of what used to be a wide yard. His table was covered in lights of all colors. Around him were about thirty booths, filled with vampires, and on each table there were black speakers. There was a red carpet set from the entrance and to the left, where a long bar sparkling with too many pink lights served poison. I didn’t think I had seen so many people in one place before, but I wasn’t surprised.
“We should spread,” I said to Drag. More and more vampires were beginning to notice us, and they watched us like predators. We were not welcome.
“I’ll go with you,” El said, and I jumped too quickly.
“No! We have a much better chance of finding her if we go on all four sides at the same time.”
“We can’t be completely on our own out there,” Drag said. “It’s dangerous…”
“It’s more dangerous than going all together. They’ll feel threatened, and they’ll need to show who’s boss,” I insisted.
“That’s why we separate into two groups,” Drag said.
“And don’t you know anybody around here that could help us?” El asked me.
“No. I don’t know anyone,” I said.
“How is that possible?”
“Do you know everyone in your country?” I asked through gritted teeth.
I was losing control because I could see no way out of this. I hated myself, because I felt guilty to even tell them that I wanted to be on my own.
“Yeah,” El said, shrugging. “I do.”
“Well, America’s bigger than Brazil,” I said, and I really hoped it was.
“Listen, we need to get going,” Drag said impatiently. “We’ll stay in twos. I’ll go with Zuke, and El will go with you. We’ll meet back here before sunrise. Do not speak to her if you find her. We need to know how we’re going to approach her and going over to say hi isn’t going to be very productive.”
So it was settled. I argued again and again. We could cover more ground if we separated. It would be easier to approach her if we were on our own. Nothing worked.
So we were on our way.
“You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you wanted to get rid of us,” El said when we were alone.
“If I wanted to get rid of you, I would’ve gotten rid of you already,” I said.
“But you don’t want to, right? We’re friends,” he said, and I didn’t like the way he said it.
I shrugged. “If you want to go that far.”
“We’ve shared poison and we’ve shared blood and shelter. That makes us friends,” he insisted.
“Yeah, I’ve shared my shelter, poison, and blood with you guys. You have barely told me why you’re here.”
Maybe, hanging alone with El wasn’t such a waste of time. Maybe, I could get more out of him.
“Don’t tell me your feelings are hurt.” El grinned.
“Nope. Just sucks,” I said with a shrug, and I realized, it did suck. Everything I told him was the truth and I even trusted them to sleep under the same roof. I was a hypocrite who lied about how she looked like, and who replaced the tranquilizer with water. It was for a good reason, but it still felt bad.
El sat up straight against the wall and rubbed his palms together. He had a weird, satisfied smile on his face as if he was glad that I told him it sucked.
“Alright,” he said, grinning. “What do you want to know?”
I shrugged. “It’s not that I know much. I have no idea who sent you, or what they want with Morta,” I said.
“I can’t really tell you the name of the mistress. But I can tell you that she’s desperate to see Morta, because she claims they’re related.”
“Related? As in, a family?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s what the mistress said.”
“Then why didn’t she come to look for her herself?” If it was my family, I would’ve.
“She’s kind of a big deal over there,” El said, shrugging. “She has work to do.”
“Are you guys planning the attack on humans?”
El didn’t move. He didn’t meet my eyes. He didn’t react at all for a few seconds. I watched for any change on his face, and the fact that I saw none terrified me. It was like a confession.
“Don’t know yet. I’ve suspected, but I’m not sure. But,” he said and stood up, dusting off his jeans, “if we bring Morta Fox back to the mistress, I will know. There’ll be no more slamming doors in my face, and no more secrets for me. I’ll be in. We all will.”
“So that’s why you’re doing this.”
It made sense, but the thing was, I wasn’t so sure anymore that finding Morta was such a bad thing. She was alone. Completely alone. If there was a member of her family alive, wouldn’t it be the right thing to tell her? Maybe she wanted to meet with whoever it was.
“I meant what I said before. If you come with us, you’ll be the same.”
“I haven’t really thought about it,” I said and stood up, too. A lot was on my mind, and for the first time since I met the guys, I wished I was alone by the ocean.
“You should,” El said. “And we should go.”
XXII
Crowds of vampires in every corner, watching us. My mind was a mess and perhaps that was a good thing. It didn’t let me concentrate on the stares the others were giving me. But I did wonder—how many of them would think I was Hammer if I took my mask off?
We looked for Drag and Zuke, but we didn’t see them. We went straight to where the music was coming from.
“Just act cool,” El repeated. He’d said that four times already, more to himself than to me. He was really nervous.
“So, tell me more about Brazil,” I said and waved for him to follow me to the bar.
“Right now?”
“Yep. We’ll look less weird if we’re talking.”
“Oh, sure.”
We reached the bar. El put his arms on the wooden counter, and his knuckles were white from how tight he was holding his fists. One of the bartenders, a normal enough looking vampire with a blue shirt and a ring around his bottom lip, stopped in front of us. He was as suspicious of us as the rest of them.
“What does a vampire have to do to get a drink around here?” El asked.
“Pay up. Dollars,” the bartender said, as if he realized El wasn’t from around there.
“Cool,” El said. “I’ve got something here.”
He put some bills on the counter and looked up at the bartender.
The vampire didn’t respond right away, just raised his brows at us. Finally, he took the money and asked,
“What do you want?”
“I’ll take some vodka.”
“Red wine is fine with me,” I said.
I realized a moment too late that I hadn’t even tried to change my voice. The bartender turned to face me.
“What’s your name?” he asked me.
“Why?” El jumped.
The bartender didn’t bother to look at him. He only analyzed my mask.
“I thought I recognized his voice,” he said.
“I’m Mask,” I said in my best altered voice.
“Why half?” El asked, when he put half a bottle of vodka in front of us.
“If you want full, you’ll have to pay more,” the bartender said.
I took the bottle and turned around to leave the bar, intending to disappear among the crowd, when the bartender added, “Are you sure we haven’t met before?”
