by Tinnean
“I told you no. I don’t love you, and I’ll kill myself before I let you sink your fangs into me!”
“That won’t be necessary,” he snarled. His eyes glowed red. “I’ll kill you myself and drain your miserable carcass!”
Somewhere in the night, a dog was barking. I ignored it and reached for the vial of holy water, but de Vivar was on me before I could pull the stopper out. As a last resort I slammed the vial against his cheek, and the glass shattered.
“My face!” he howled. “What have you done?” As with the vampyrs at the rest area, smoke rose from his cheek as the holy water ate away at the flesh.
I tried to edge around him, but he wheeled back to face me.
“You… you will pay for this!” He dropped his hands to his waistband and undid the fly of his trousers. I remembered what he’d done to Uncle Phil. “I’ll teach you to defy me!” His words were starting to slur as his cheek melted away to reveal his teeth. “I’m going to fuck you and drain you dry. When you reanimate tomorrow evening, you’ll belong to me—I’ll control you, body and whatever soul you might have. You’ll never taste the richness of a normal’s blood.” He bared his teeth in a death’s mask of a grin, and more flesh vanished, this time around his eye socket. “You’ll feed on insects… cockroaches and worms and lick the shit from my boots—”
A window shattered, and in spite of the fact I knew I should keep my eyes on de Vivar, I had to look. Glass and splintered wood rained down, and in the midst….
I’d never seen an animal like this before. She was huge, even larger than a Neapolitan mastiff, but with a thick brown-and-white coat. Ribbons of slobber dripped from her massive jaws, which were parted to reveal teeth even whiter and sharper than de Vivar’s.
The breaking glass—along with growls I’d swear sounded familiar—had diverted De Vivar’s attention from me, and he’d wheeled to face her.
“¡Madre de Dios!” Those were the last words he spoke. The animal launched herself at him, snapping her jaws closed around his neck. There was a sickening crunch, and when she shook her head, she separated de Vivar’s head from his body.
I stared, horrified, as he blinked one eye frantically—the other eyelid was gone, and the eye itself hung on its stalk against his denuded cheek. His lips parted as if he was going to speak… or scream… but nothing came out. Slowly the light of awareness faded from his lone eye.
“Well.” I swallowed a couple of times and then cleared my throat. I hoped she wasn’t going to tear my head off too. “Uh… thank you?”
She ran her tongue over her muzzle and wrinkled it as if the taste of de Vivar’s blood didn’t please her. She took a step toward me and whimpered when she nearly went down. There was a trail of blood behind her, and I realized she must have cut her leg going through the window.
“Will you let me see that?” I held out my right hand, startled to see it covered in blood. How…? Oh, yeah. When I’d broken the glass vial against de Vivar’s cheek.
She limped to me, licked my cheek, and dropped down onto my lap.
“Oof!” Fortunately she hadn’t landed on anything important. I took her leg. A flap of skin dangled from it, and I fit it back in place. “I hope I’m not hurting you.” I squeezed gently, hoping to stop the bleeding. “We need to get you to a vet.”
Blood seeped through my fingers—her blood and mine—and she licked it off. “Woof.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
A door banged open somewhere in the house, and I looked around for something I could use as a weapon. Maybe I could tear off one of de Vivar’s arms and use it as a club?
Only all that was left of de Vivar was a pile of ashes.
“Ty! Tyrell!”
I sagged in relief. “Ekaterina, I’m here!” Although I couldn’t really say where “here” was.
She didn’t have any trouble finding me, though. She burst into the room, followed by three of the male day watchers who’d been at the beach last week. They were all armed with sharpened stakes.
“Oh, Tyrell. Are you all right?”
“I’ll be better once I have a shower.” I tugged at the front of my sweatshirt, now covered in blood as well as dried vomit. “Yuck.” I wanted nothing more than to get out of that sweatshirt and throw it as far away from me as I could, but what if a normal found it? We’d be back to the same situation as in the rest area’s parking lot. I ran my fingers through the dog’s brown-and-white fur. “But this dog needs to see a vet. Her leg’s….” The breath stuttered in my chest. The bleeding had stopped and the flesh was knitting together almost as I watched.
What kind of animal was this?
She lowered her head to her paws and sighed. Somehow she didn’t seem as heavy as she had just moments earlier.
A sound like an explosion came from the front of the house, and a man raced in.
“Thomas, I got here as soon as I could,” he panted. He had a badge clipped to his belt, and like the day watchers, he gripped a stake in his hand.
I recognized him. He was Luke, who I’d met last week at the beach.
He glanced around the room. “Guess I’m not really need—Oh, shit!” He wasn’t looking at me, or the dog on my lap, or even the ashes that were all that was left of de Vivar’s headless body. His gaze was directed to my right, and he almost staggered as he made his way in that direction. “Oh God. Matt, what did you get yourself involved in?” He dropped to his knees and turned Matthew’s head.
“You… you know my brother?”
“Yeah, Ty.” He’d recognized me as well. “Yeah. He’s… he’s my brother too.” He cradled Matthew against his body and rocked back and forth.
The dog raised her head and stared toward the front of the house. Growls spilled from her throat, and the day watchers formed a semicircle around me, tense and ready to confront whoever arrived.
“What?” Luke swiped an arm over his cheeks.
“Company.”
He set Matthew down and joined the day watchers.
It was de Vivar’s vampyrs.
“You’ve… you’ve killed the maestro!” They knew. Somehow, they knew. The one called Miguel gnashed his teeth against his lips. Was everyone going to start singing “Ding Dong the Vampyr is Dead”? “I’ll—”
“You’ll do nothing!” The rege had arrived without me realizing it, and he stood there, surrounded by his enforcers. He signaled to Raymond. “Destroy his talisman.”
“You… you can’t!” Miguel faced him defiantly.
“Do you forget who I am?”
Silence hung in the room as Raymond closed his hand around something beneath the shirt Miguel wore and squeezed.
Miguel stared down at his chest and stumbled backward.
“Tyrell!” Adam rushed to my side. “Mina, you must move.” He eased the dog off my lap. She suddenly seemed smaller.
“Mina? This is Mina?”
“Didn’t you hear anything I told you about your Înger Păzitor?” He shook his head and pulled me onto his lap.
“Adam, you can’t hold me. I’m disgusting.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m covered in vomit and….” I lowered my voice. “And piss.” I was so mortified.
“I’ll take you home.”
“Adam, if you’ll wait for a short time?” the rege requested.
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“Your Grace, what of us?” The other four vampyrs awaited his pleasure.
“With de Vivar as your maker, you had no say in this matter. However, you could have come to me at any time.”
“Could we have? We had no way of knowing that.” Antonia faced the rege fearlessly. “I’m weary, Your Grace. If you wish to destroy my talisman….” She reached into the bodice of her dress, pulled it out, and held it toward him.
“I will not have you destroyed, but keep in mind you’re on probation. The slightest misstep….” He let his threat hang.
“Sir, she helped me. If she hadn’t untied my hands, de
Vivar would have drained me for sure.”
“Indeed? In that case, as a reward for your actions, I will grant you clemency.”
“You’re not doing me any favor, Your Grace. Five hundred years like this….”
“Tyrell, is your hand still bleeding?”
“Uh….” I looked down at my palm. “No. I’m sorry.” Although I had no idea what I was apologizing about.
Adam took my hand and used a fingernail to reopen one of the wounds.
“Ow!” Blood began welling up in my palm.
“Forgive me, dragul meu. Your Grace.” He held out my hand.
“Antonia, sabor blood cures many things, including the manner in which de Vivar turned you. You may have a taste.”
“Your Grace!” She dropped to her knees before us. “Señor, may I?”
Why not? It would only go to waste otherwise. “Just please don’t touch me.” I opened my palm, and she ran her tongue over it delicately.
When she was done, she sat back on her heels. “¡Gracias! ¡Muchas, muchas gracias!”
“De nada. Can I go home now? I really need a shower.”
“Of course.” Adam helped me to my feet.
I paused and turned to face my… my brother. “Luke, Dad said you and my sisters would be visiting?”
“Yeah. But you’re going to need some rest. We can wait.” He looked around the room and ran a hand through his hair. “Two vampyrs are missing.”
“Benito and Miguel.” Antonia frowned.
“Pula mea!” The rege sounded really ticked off. “They must have slipped away when we were distracted by other things.”
“I’m sorry.” I was so tired.
“This is not your fault, Tyrell,” the rege said.
That was easy for him to say. It all came down to de Vivar wanting me.
“Benito always worshipped Miguel,” Antonia mused. “He’ll stay with him until the end.”
“And then?” Luke asked.
“Benito knows he’s treading on thin ice. He’ll watch his step.”
Something de Vivar had said about replacing the soil in a talisman niggled at my brain, but I was just so tired. I yawned and leaned against Adam.
“Come. I’ll take you home.” Adam wrapped an arm around my waist. “Mina?” She came to him, and he scooped her up and handed her to me.
“Ty.” Luke’s voice was hesitant.
“Yes?”
“I… I have to make the arrangements, but will you come to Matthew’s funeral? He wasn’t the easiest person to get along with, and I know you have no reason to think well of him, but….”
“Sure.” I’d do it for Dad and Luke and my sisters, and for the few minutes when I’d thought Matthew had been as excited to have me as his brother as I was to have him as mine.
“Thank you.” He took a step toward me, and when Adam angled himself between us, Luke flushed. “I’m sorry. How should I get in touch with you?”
“Let your father know the details,” Adam said shortly. “He’ll contact Ty.”
“Ty?” The concern in my brother’s voice was obvious.
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Okay.”
My eyelids felt as if they were weighted down by a ton of beach sand. “Adam?”
“Yes, dragul meu?”
“Can we go home now?”
“Yes, Ty.”
As we left, I heard the rege say, “Ekaterina, I want to thank you and your day watchers for what you’ve done. I will see you’re suitably rewarded….”
And then somehow I was in Adam’s arms, and he pressed my head to his shoulder. “Close your eyes, Ty. We’ll be home before you know it.”
He was right. It seemed I had no sooner closed my eyes than Adam was standing me in the bathroom of my bungalow. He reached into the shower and turned on the water.
“I want these clothes burned,” I mumbled as I stripped them off.
“I’ll see to it.”
“Thank you, Adam.”
“Oh, Ty.”
“What?”
He touched my cheek and my torso. “Who put their hands on you?”
I looked into the mirror. There was a welt in the shape of four fingers across my cheek. “Matthew.” I remembered him shoving the cloth over my mouth and nose and holding it there. I’d panicked, not from whatever he’d soaked the cloth in, but because his fingers were on my skin and it burned.
“It’s a good thing he’s dead, because I would have taken great pleasure in killing him.”
“Thank you, Adam,” I said again.
“You’re not upset I would destroy your sibling?”
“He gave me to a vampyr who was a wackjob. I just lucked out I regained consciousness before de Vivar came for me.” I paused for a moment. “Does it upset you, that I could be so callous?”
“Not in the least. It pleases me to know you don’t let sentimentality cloud your judgment.”
I tipped my head. “You’re the only one I’m sentimental over. And Dad and Mina. Oh, and Jimmy. And the gang.”
He ruffled my hair. “Explain this mark.” He ran his fingers across my torso.
“That was Antonia. She had to get me up against the wall, and whatever Matthew used to knock me out—”
“Chloroform.”
“Was that what it was?” I sighed. “I was weak as a baby, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own.”
“Dragul meu.”
“What does that mean?”
His smile was crooked. “My love.”
“Oh!”
He stroked my hair, then opened the vein in his wrist. “Drink.”
I could only get a few sips, but they were enough. The burning sensations disappeared.
“Now let’s get you into the shower.”
THE FUNERAL mass was held on Friday at Our Lady Star of the Sea, and from there we would go to the cemetery to see my oldest brother’s body laid to rest.
Earlier, at the funeral home, I’d met more of the family I’d never known. Dad had called his father and brother Dave on Wednesday—no one knew where Uncle Phil was—and Grandpa and Uncle Dave had flown in from their home in South Carolina, along with Uncle Dave’s wife and six kids. The kids ranged in age from sixteen down to three, and even the youngest behaved well. None of them were sabors, but they would pass on the gene.
Grandpa looked gray, even though he was only in his early seventies, and shortly after Father Toby had said a few words to the family, Uncle Dave came to Dad.
“Ben, we’re going to take Dad back to the hotel. He’s not feeling well. Matt was his first grandchild,” he added softly by way of explanation, “and he was a good kid.”
“Yes, he was,” Dad said. He and Luke had talked it over, and when Adam and I had arrived the night before, they’d told me they’d decided not to mention Matthew’s part in my kidnapping to anyone. I didn’t object. We all had reasons for wanting to keep Matthew’s actions between the three of us who walked in the world of normals. Even my sisters didn’t know the whole story. “Come over when Dad feels better, okay?”
“Sounds like a plan.” They intended to stay a few days more at the Clewiston Downtown Lafayette Hotel.
Uncle Dave, Aunt Georgia, their kids, and Grandpa hugged Dad and my siblings—somehow Aunt Georgia and the kids knew not to touch me—and said good-bye to me. Within minutes, they were gone.
Now I stood with Dad, Luke, and my sisters at Matthew’s gravesite. On Dad’s other side, Mrs. Wilder held his hand. The day watchers were a short distance away—before we’d left for the cemetery, Ekaterina had introduced her brother William and Henry and Thomas—and beyond them my friends clustered.
Mina sat at my heel. All signs of trauma to her leg were gone.
It was too early in the day for Adam to be up. He was asleep in my room at Dad’s house. When we’d arrived a few hours after sunset the night before, I’d made sure the shutters were secure over the windows.
“How are you doing, Ty?” Dad asked. He’d had a
hard time forgiving anyone: the vampyrs for Matthew’s death; Matthew for being involved in my kidnapping; Matthew’s mother and grandfather for ruining him.
“I’m okay, Dad.” After the shower, I’d slept twenty-four hours straight. When I woke, I’d been ready to take on the world: Adam was there, lying beside me.
Dad sighed and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes.
There were many times when I regretted I couldn’t touch him, but just then I couldn’t think of any I regretted more.
“Dad….”
Father Toby came around the casket and shook Dad’s hand. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. Small.” He looked around at the rest of the family. If he was confused by their sudden appearance in Clewiston, he kept it to himself. “My deepest condolences to you all.”
“Thank you, Father Toby. I appreciate you doing this on such short notice.”
“It’s what I do.” He shook hands with my brother and sisters, then nodded toward me. “Good-bye and God bless.” He crossed to the parking lot, got in the old sedan that had belonged to the rectory for as long as I could remember, and drove away.
Jimmy waved me over. “We’ve got to go too, Ty,”
“Thanks so much for coming, guys.”
“That’s what friends are for.” Jimmy leaned in close to me. “Where’s the big guy?” He meant Raymond.
“He didn’t come this time around.” Since I had Adam with me, there was no need.
Jimmy stared at William and Henry. “It’s really nice of these guys to show up.”
“It is.” Of course my friends had recognized the day watchers, but they still believed they were classmates.
“Just remember: we were your friends first.”
“Always.” I was more choked up by Jimmy’s sentiment than by the loss of my brother.
“Okay, then. You going to bring one of them to the wedding?”
“Uh… they’re straight, James.” So was Thomas, who was at home keeping watch over Adam as he slept.
“So? They could do a lot worse.”
